\. 


' 


OS 


'*  f  ibrarjf  of  tlw  irorttl'si  <§c$t 


MOSSES 


FROM 


AN  OLD  MANSE 


BY  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE. 


NEW  YORK: 
A.  L.  BURT,  PUBLISHER. 


A) 
\<\\Z 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

<The  Old  Manse 1 

If  The  Birthmark 28 

>*^A  Select  Party 45 

f  Young  Goodman  Brown 59 

/^Rappaccini's  Daughter 73 

^  Mrs.  Bullfrog 102 

Fire-Worship 109 

Buds  and  Bird  Voices 117 

Monsieur  du  Miroir 126 

The  Hall  of  Fantasy 137 

The  Celestial  Railroad 149 

The  Procession  of  Life 166 

IX  Feathertop.     A  Moralized  Legend 179 

-fThe  New  Adam  and  Eve 199 

jf  Egotism;  or,  The  Bosom-Serpent 216 

^The  Christinas  Banquet 230 

Drowne's  Wooden  Image 248 

The  Intelligence-Office 261 

^fRoger  Mai vin's  Burial 274 

P.'s  Correspondence 294 

Earth's  Holocaust 311- 

Sketches  from  Memory 331 ' 

4<  The  Old  Apple-Dealer 351 

X  The  Artist  of  the  Beautiful 357 

A  Virtuoso's  Collection . .  382 


MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 


THE  OLD  MANSE. 

The  author  makes  the  reader  acquainted  with  his  abode. 

BETWEEN  two  tall  gate-posts  of  rough-hewn  stone  (the 
gate  itself  having  fallen  from  its  hinges  at  some  unknown 
epoch)  we  beheld  the  gray  front  of  the  old  parsonage,  ter 
minating  the  vista  of  an  avenue  of  black-ash  trees.  It 
was  now  a  twelvemonth  since  the  funeral  procession  of  the 
venerable  clergyman,  its  last  inhabitant,  had  turned  from 
that  gateway  toward  the  village  burying-ground.  The 
wheel-track  leading  to  the  door,  as  well  as  the  whole 
breadth  of  the  avenue,  was  almost  overgrown  with  grass, 
affording  dainty  mouthfuls  to  two  or  three  vagrant  cows 
and  an  old  white  horse  who  had  his  own  living  to  pick 
up  along  the  roadside.  The  glimmering  shadows  that  lay 
half  asleep  between  the  door  of  the  house  and  the  public 
highway  were  a  kind  of  spiritual  medium  seen  through 
which  the  edifice  had  not  quite  the  aspect  of  belonging  to 
the  material  world.  Certainly  it  had  little  in  common 
with  those  ordinary  abodes  which  stand  so  imminent  upon 
the  road  that  every  passer-by  can  thrust  his  head,  as  it 
were,  into  the  domestic  circle.  From  these  quiet  win 
dows  the  figures  of  passing  travelers  looked  too  remote  and 
dim  to  disturb  the  sense  of  privacy.  In  its  near  retire 
ment  and  accessible  seclusion,  it  was  the  very  spot  for  the 
residence  of  a  clergyman  —  a  man  not  estranged  from 
human  life,  yet  enveloped,  in  the  midst  of  it,  with  a  veil 
woven  of  intermingled  gloom  and  brightness.  It  was 
worthy  to  have  been  one  of  the  time-honored  parsonages  of 
England  in  which  through  many  generations  a  succession 
of  holy  occupants  pass  from  youth  to  age,  and  be,- 


ii :anv  ;inhenteince   of  sanctity  to   pervade   the 
hotf&e.  afcilkoVei-  over -it  as  with  an  atmosphere. 

Nor,  in  truth,  had  the  Old  Manse  ever  been  profaned  by 
a  lay-occupant  until  that  memorable  summer  afternoon 
when  I  entered  it  as  my  home.  A  priest  had  built  it,  a 
priest  had  succeeded  to  it;  other  priestly  men  from  time 
to  time  had  dwelt  in  it,  and  children  born  in  its  chambers 
had  grown  up  to  assume  the  priestly  character.  It  was 
awful  to  reflect  how  many  sermons  must  have  been  written 
there.  The  latest  inhabitant  alone — he,  by  whose  transla 
tion  to  paradise  the  dwelling  was  left  vacant — had  penned 
nearly  3,000  discourses  besides  the  better,  if  not  the 
greater,  number  that  gushed  living  from  his  lips.  How 
often,  no  doubt,  had  he  paced  to  and  fro  along  the  avenue, 
attuning  his  meditations  to  the  sighs  and  gentle  murmurs 
and  deep  and  solemn  peals  of  the  wind  among  the  lofty 
tops  of  the  trees!  In  that  variety  of  natural  utterances 
he  could  find  something  accordant  with  every  passage  of 
his  sermon,  were  it  of  tenderness  or  reverential  fear.  The 
boughs  over  my  head  seemed  shadowy  with  solemn 
thoughts  as  well  as  with  rustling  leaves.  I  took  shame  to 
myself  for  having  been  so  long  a  writer  of  idle  stories, 
and  ventured  to  hope  that  wisdom  would  descend  upon  me 
with  the  falling  leaves  of  the  avenue,  and  that  I  should 
light  upon  an  intellectual  treasure  in  the  Old  Manse  well 
worth  those  hoards  of  long-hidden  gold  which  people  seek 
for  in  moss-grown  houses.  Profound  treatises  of  morality 
— a  layman's  unprofessional,  and,  therefore,  prejudiced, 
views  of  religion — histories  (such  as  Bancroft  might  have 
written  had  he  taken  up  his  abode  here,  as  he  once  pro- 
proposed),  bright  with  picture  gleaming  over  a  depth  of 
philosophic  thought — these  were  the  works  that  might 
fitly  have  flowed  from  such  a  retirement.  In  the  hum 
blest  event,  I  resolved  at  least  to  achieve  a  novel  that 
should  evolve  some  deep  lesson,  and  should  possess  physi 
cal  substance  enough  to  stand  alone. 

In  furtherance  of  my  design,  and  as  if  to  leave  me  no 
pretext  for  not  fulfilling  it,  there  was  in  the  rear  of  the 
house  the  most  delightful  little  nook  of  a  study  that  ever 
offered  its  snug  seclusion  to  a  scholar.  It  was  here  that 
Emerson  wrote  "Nature,"  for  he  was  then  an  inhabitant 
of  the  manse,  and  used  to  watch  the  Assyrian  dawn  and 
the  Paphian  sunset  and  moonrise  from  the  summit  of  our 


THE  OLD  MANSE.  3 

eastern  hill.  When  I  first  saw  the  room,  its  walls  were 
blackened  with  the  smoke  of  unnumbered  years,  and  made 
still  blacker  by  the  grim  prints  of  puritan  ministers  that 
hung  around.  These  worthies  looked  strangely  like  bad 
angels — or,  at  least,  like  men  who  had  wrestled  so  con 
tinually  and  so  sternly  with  the  devil  that  somewhat  of  his 
sooty  fierceness  had  been  imparted  to  their  own  visages. 
They  had  all  vanished  now.  A  cheerful  coat  of  paint  and 
golden-tinted  paper-hangings  lighted  up  the  small  apart 
ment,  while  the  shadow  of  a  willow  tree  that  swept  against 
the  over-hanging  eaves  attempered  the  cheery  western  sun 
shine.  In  place  of  the  grim  prints  there  was  the  sweet 
and  lovely  head  of  one  of  IxaphaeFs  Madonnas  and  two 
pleasant  little  pictures  of  the  Lake  of  Como.  The  only 
other  decorations  were  a  purple  vase  of  flowers,  always 
fresh,  and  a  bronze  one  containing  graceful  ferns.  My 
books  (few  and  by  no  means  choice,  for  they  were  chiefly 
such  waifs  as  chance  had  thrown  in  my  way)  stood  in  order 
about  the  room,  seldom  to  be  disturbed. 

The  study  had  three  windows  set  with  little  old-fashioned 
panes  of  glass,  each  with  a  crack  across  it.  The  two  on 
the  western  side  looked — or,  rather,  peeped — between  the 
willow  branches  down  into  the  orchard,  with  glimpses  of 
the  river  through  the  trees.  The  third,  facing  northward, 
commanded  a  broader  view  of  the  river  at  a  spot  where  its 
hitherto  obscure  waters  gleamed  forth  into  the  light  of  his 
tory.  It  was  at  this  window  that  the  clergyman  who  then 
dwelt  in  the  manse  stood  watching  the  outbreak  of  a  long 
and  deadly  struggle  between  two  nations.  He  saw  the  ir 
regular  array  of  his  parishioners  on  the  farther  side  of  the 
river,  and  the  glittering  line  of  the  British  on  the  hither 
bank;  he  awaited  in  an  agony  of  suspense  the  rattle  of  the 
musketry.  It  came,  and  there  needed  but  a  gentle  wind 
to  sweep  the  battle-smoke  around  this  quiet  house. 

Perhaps  the  reader — whom  1  cannot  help  considering  as 
my  guest  in  the  Old  Manse,  and  entitled  to  all  courtesy  in 
the  way  of  sight-showing — perhaps  he  will  choose  to  take  a 
nearer  view  of  the  memorable  spot.  We  stand  now  on  the 
river's  brink.  It  may  be  well  called  the  Concord — the 
river  of  peace  and  quietness — for  it  is  certainly  the  most 
unexcitable  and  sluggish  stream  that  ever  loitered  imper 
ceptibly  toward  its  eternity  the  sea.  Positively,  I  had 
lived  three  weeks  beside  it  before  it  grew  quite  clear  to  my 


4  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

perception  which  way  the  current  flowed.  It  never  has  a 
vivacious  aspect  except  when  a  northwestern  breeze  is  vex 
ing  its  surface  on  a  sunshiny  day.  From  the  incurable  in 
dolence  of  its  nature  the  stream  is,  happily,  incapable  of 
becoming  the  slave  of  human  ingenuity,  as  is  the  fate  of  so 
many  a  wild,  free  mountain-torrent.  While  all  things  else 
I  are  compelled  to  subserve  some  useful  purpose,  it  idles  its 
';  sluggish  life  away  in  lazy  liberty  without  turning  a  solitary 
spindle  or  affording  even  water-power  enough  to  grind  the 
corn  that  grows  upon  its  banks.  The  torpor  of  its  move 
ment  allows  it  nowhere  a  bright  pebbly  shore,  nor  so  much 
as  a  narrow  strip  of  glistening  sand  in  any  part  of  its 
course.  It  slumbers  between  broad  prairies,  kissing  the 
long  meadow-grass,  and  bathes  the  overhanging  boughs  of 
elder  bushes  and  willows  or  the  root  of  elms  and  ash  trees 
and  clumps  of  maples.  Flags  and  rushes  grow  along  its 
plashy  shores;  the  yellow  water-lily  spreads  its  broad  flat 
leaves  on  the  margin,  and  the  fragrant  white  pond-lily 
abounds,  generally  selecting  a  position  just  so  far  from  the 
river's  brink  that  it  cannot  be  grasped  save  at  the  hazard 
of  plunging  in. 

It  is  a  marvel  whence  this  perfect  flower  derives  its  love 
liness  and  perfume,  springing,  as  it  does,  from  the  black 
mud  over  which  the  river  sleeps,  and  where  lurk  the  slimy 
eel  and  speckled  frog  and  the  mud-turtle  whom  continual 
washing  cannot  cleanse.  It  is  the  very  same  black  mud 
out  of  which  the  yellow  lily  sucks  its  obscene  life  and 
noisome  odor.  Thus  we  see,  too,  in  the  world  that  some 
persons  assimilate  only  what  is  ugly  and  evil  from  the  same 
moral  circumstances  which  supply  gpod  and  beautified 
results — the  fragrance  of  celestial  flowers — to  the  daily  life 
of  others. 

The  reader  must  not  from  any  testimony  of  mine  con 
tract  a  dislike  toward  our  slumberous  stream.  In  the  light 
of  a  calm  and  golden  sunset  it  becomes  lovely  beyond  ex 
pression — the  more  lovely  for  the  quietude  that  so  well 
accords  with  the  hour,  when  even  the  wind,  after  bluster 
ing  all  day  long,  usually  hushes  itself  to  rest.  Each  tree 
and  rock  and  every  blade  of  grass  is  distinctly  imaged, 
and,  however  unsightly  in  reality,  assumes  ideal  beauty  in 
the  reflection.  The  minutest  things  of  earth  and  the 
broad  aspect  of  the  firmament  are  pictured  equally  without 
effort  and  with  the  same  felicity  of  success.  All  the  sky 


THE  OLD  MANSE.  5 

glows  downward  at  our  feet;  the  rich  clouds  float  through 
the  unruffled  bosom  of  the  stream  like  heavenly  thoughts 
through  a  peaceful  heart.  We  will  not,  then,  malign  our 
river  as  gross  and  impure,  while  it  can  glorify  itself  with 
so  adequate  a  picture  of  the  heaven  that  broods  above  it; 
or  if  we  remember  its  tawny  hue  and  the  muddiness  of  its 
bed,  let  it  be  a  symbol  that  the  earthliest  human  soul  has 
an  infinite  spiritual  capacity  and  may  contain  the  better 
world  within  its  depths.  But,  indeed,  the  same  lesson 
might  be  drawn  out  of  any  mud-puddle  in  the  streets  of  a 
city;  and,  being  taught  us  everywhere,  it  must  be  true. 

Come!  We  have  pursued  a  somewhat  devious  track  in 
our  walk  to  the  battle-ground.  Here  we  are  at  the  point 
where  the  river  was  crossed  by  the  old  bridge,  the  posses 
sion  of  which  was  the  immediate  object  of  the  contest.  On 
the  hither  side  grow  two  or  three  elms,  throwing  a  wide 
circumference  of  shade,  but  which  must  have  been  planted 
at  some  period  within  the  three-score  years  and  ten  that 
have  passed  since  the  battle  day.  On"  the  farther  shore, 
overhung  by  a  clump  of  elder-bushes,  we  discern  the  stone 
abutment  of  the  bridge.  Looking  down  into  the  river,  I 
once  discovered  some  heavy  fragments  of  timbers,  all  green 
with  half  a  century's  growth  of  water-moss;  for  during 
that  length  of  time  the  tramp  of  horses  and  human  foot 
steps  have  ceased  along  this  ancient  highway.  The  stream 
has  here  about  the  breadth  of  twenty  strokes  of  a  swim 
mer's  arm — a  space  not  too  wide  when  the  bullets  were 
whistling  across.  Old  people  who  dwell  hereabouts  will 
point  out  the  very  spots  on  the  western  bank  where  our 
countrymen  fell  down  and  died,  and  on  this  side  of  the 
river  an  obelisk  of  granite  has  grown  up  from  the  soil  that 
was  fertilized  with  British  .blood.  The  monument — not 
more  than  twenty  feet  in  height — is  such  as  it  befitted  the 
inhabitants  of  a  village  to  erect  in  illustration  of  a  matter 
of  local  interest,  rather  than  what  was  suitable  to  com 
memorate  an  epoch  of  national  history.  Still,  by  the 
fathers  of  the  village  this  famous  deed  was  done,  and  their 
descendants  might  rightfully  claim  the  privilege  of  build 
ing  a  memorial. 

A  humbler  token  of  the  fight,  yet  a  more  interesting 
one,  than  the  granite  obelisk  may  be  seen  close  under  the 
stone  wall  which  separates  the  battle-ground  from  the  pre 
cincts  of  the  parsonage.  It  is  the  grave — marked  by  a. 


6  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

small  moss-grown  fragment  of  stone  at  the  head,  and  an 
other  at  the  foot — the  grave  of  two  British  soldiers  who 
were  slain  in  the  skirmish,  and  have  ever  since  slept  peace 
fully  where  Zechariah  Brown  and  Thomas  Davis  buried 
them.  Soon  was  their  warfare  ended.  A  weary  night- 
march  from  Boston,  a  rattling  volley  of  musketry  across 
the  river,  and  then  these  many  years  of  rest.  In  the  long 
procession  of  slain  invaders  who  passed  into  eternity  from 
the  battle- fields  of  the  revolution  these  two  nameles  sol 
diers  led  the  way. 

Lowell,  the  poet,  as  we  were  once  standing  over  this 
grave,  told  me  a  tradition  in  reference  to  one  of  the  in 
habitants  below.  The  story  has  something  deeply  impres 
sive,  though  its  circumstances  cannot  altogether  be  recon 
ciled  with  probability.  A  youth  in  the  service  of  the 
clergyman  happened  to  be  chopping  wood  that  April 
morning  at  the  back  door  of  the  manse;  and  when  the 
noise  of  battle  rang  from  side  to  side  of  the  bridge,  he 
hastened  across  the  intervening  field  to  see  what  might  be 
going  forward.  It  is  rather  strange,  by  the  way,  that  this 
lad  should  have  been  so  diligently  at  work  when  the  whole 
population  of  town  and  country  were  startled  out  of  their 
customary  business  by  the  advance  of  the  British  troops. 
Be  that  as  it  might,  the  tradition  says  that  the  lad  now 
left  his  task  and  hurried  to  the  battle-field  with  the  ax  still 
in  his  hand.  The  British  had  by  this  time  retreated;  the 
Americans  were  in  pursuit,  and  the  late  scene  of  strife  was 
thus  deserted  by  both  parties.  Two  soldiers  lay  on  the 
ground;  one  was  a  corpse,  but,  as  the  young  New  En- 
glander  drew  nigh,  the  other  Briton  raised  himself  pain 
fully  upon  his  hands  and  knees  and  gave  a  ghastly  "stare 
into  his  face.  The  boy — it  must  have  been  a  nervous  im 
pulse  without  purpose,  without  thought  and  betokening  a 
sensitive  and  impressible  nature  rather  than  a  hardened 
one — the  boy  uplifted  his  ax  and  dealt  the  wounded  soldier 
a  fierce  and  fatal  blow  upon  the  head.  I  could  wish  that 
the  grave  might  be  opened,  for  I  would  fain  know  whether 
either  of  the  skeleton-soldiers  has  the  mark  of  an  ax  in 
his  skull. 

The  story  comes  home  to  me  like  truth.  Oftentimes,  as 
an  intellectual  and  moral  exercise,  I  have  sought  to  follow 
that  poor  youth  through  his  subsequent  career  and  observe 
how  his  soul  was  tortured  by  the  blood-stain,  contracted,  as 


THE  OLD  MANSE.  7 

it  had  been,  before  the  long  custom  of  war  had  robbed  hu 
man  life  of  its  sanctity  and  while  it  still  seemed  murderous 
to  slay  a  brother-man.  This  one  circumstance  has  borne 
more  fruit  for  me  than  ail  that  history  tells  us  of  the 
fight. 

Many  strangers  come  in  the  summer-time  to  view  the 
battle-ground.  For  my  own  part,  I  have  never  found  my 
imagination  much  excited  by  this  or  any  other  scene  of 
historic  celebrity,  nor  would  the  placid  margin  of  the  river 
have  lost  any  of  its  charm  for  me  had  men  never  fought 
and  died  there.  There  is  a  wilder  interest  in  the  tract  of 
land — perhaps  a  hundred  yards  in  breadth — which  extends 
between  the  battle-tield  and  the  northern  face  of  our  Old 
Manse,  with  its  contiguous  avenue  and  orchard.  Here,  in 
some  unknown  age  before  the  white  man  came,  stood  an 
Indian  village  convenient  to  the  river  whence  its  inhabi 
tants  must  have  drawn  so  large  a  part  of  their  subsistence. 
The  site  is  identified  by  the  spear  and  arrow-heads,  the 
chisels,  and  other  implements  of  war,  labor  and  the  chase 
which  the  plow  turns  up  from  the  soil.  You  see  a  splinter 
of  stone  half  hidden  beneath  a  sod.  It  looks  like  nothing 
worthy  of  note;  but  if  you  have  faith  enough  to  pick  it  up, 
behold!  a  relic.  Thoreau,  who  has  a  strange  faculty  of 
finding  what  the  Indians  have  left,  behind  them,  first 
set  me  on  the  search,  and  I  afterward  enriched  myself 
with  some  very  perfect  specimens  so  rudely  wrought  that 
it  seemed  almost  as  if  chance  had  fashioned  them. 
Their  great  charm  consists  in  this  rudeness  and  in  the 
individuality  of  each  article,  so  different  from  the  pro 
ductions  of  civilized  machinery,  which  shapes  everything 
on  one  pattern.  There  is  exquisite  delight,  too,  in 
picking  up  for  one's  self  an  arrow-head  that  was  dropped 
centuries  ago  and  has  never  been  handled  since,  and 
which  we  thus  receive  directly  from  the  hand  of  the 
red  hunter  who  purposed  to  shoot  it  at  his  game  or  at  an 
enemy.  Such  an  incident  builds  up  again  the  Indian  vil 
lage  and  its  encircling  forest,  and  recalls  to  life  the  painted 
chiefs  and  warriors,  the  squaws  at  their  household  toil 
and  the  children  sporting  among  the  wigwams,  while  the 
little  wind-rocked  papoose  swings  from  the  branch  of  a 
tree.  It  can  hardly  be  told  whether  it  is  a  joy  or  a  pain, 
after  such  a  momentary  vision,  to  gaze  around  in  the 
broad  daylight  of  reality  and  see  stone  fences,  white 


8  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

houses,  potato-fields  and  men  doggedly  hoeing  in  their 
shirt-sleeves  and  home-spun  pantaloons.  But  this  is  non 
sense.  The  Old  Manse  is  better  than  1,000  wigwams. 

The  Old  Manse!  We  had  almost  forgotten  it,  but  will 
return  thither  through  the  orchard.  This  was  set  out  by 
the  last  clergyman  in  the  decline  of  his  life,  when  the 
neighbors  laughed  at  the  hoary-headed  man  for  planting 
trees  from  which  he  could  have  no  prospect  of  gathering 
fruit.  Even  had  that  been  the  case,  there  was  only  so 
much  the  better  motive  for  planting  them  in  the  pure  and 
unselfish  hope  of  benefiting  his  successors — an  end  so  sel 
dom  achieved  by  more  ambitious  efforts.  But  the  old 
minister,  before  reaching  his  patriarchal  age  of  90,  ate  the 
apples  from  this  orchard  during  many  years,  and  added 
silver  and  gold  to  his  annual  stipend  by  disposing  of  the 
superfluity.  It  is  pleasant  to  think  of  him  walking  among 
the  trees  in  the  quiet  afternoons  of  early  autumn  and 
picking  up  here  and  there  a  windfall,  while  he  observes 
how  heavily  the  branches  are  weighed  down  and  com 
putes  the  number  of  empty  flour-barrels  that  will  be  filled 
by  their  burden.  He  loved  each  tree,  doubtless,  as  if  it 
had  been  his  own  child.  An  orchard  has  a  relation  to 
mankind  and  readily  connects  itself  with  matters  of  the 
heart.  The  trees  possess  a  domestic  character;  they  have 
lost  the  wild  nature  of  their  forest-kindred,  and  have 
grown  humanized  by  receiving  the  care  of  man  as  well  as 
by  contributing  to  his  wants.  There  is  so  much  individu 
ality  of  character,  too,  among  apples,  that  it  gives  them 
an  additional  claim  to  be  the  objects  of  human  interest. 
One  is  harsh  and  crabbed  in  its  manifestations;  another 
gives  us  fruit  as  mild  as  charity.  One  is  churlish  and 
illiberal,  evidently  grudging  the  few  apples  that  it  bears; 
another  exhausts  itself  in  free-hearted  benevolence.  The 
variety  of  grotesque  shapes  into  which  apple  trees  contort 
themselves  has  its  effect  on  those  who  get  acquainted  with 
them:  they  stretch  out  their  crooked  branches  and  take 
such  hold  of  the  imagination  that  we  remember  them  as 
humorists  and  odd  fellows.  And  what  is  more  melan 
choly  than  the  old  apple  trees  that  linger  about  the  spot 
where  once  stood  a  homestead,  but  where  there  is  now 
only  a  ruined  chimney  rising  out  of  a  grassy  and  weed- 
grown  cellar?  They  offer  their  fruit  to  every  wayfarer — 
apples  that  are  bitter-sweet  with  the  moral  of  time's  vi 
cissitude. 


THE  OLD  MANSE.  9 

I  have  met  with  no  other  such  pleasant  trouble  in  the 
world  as  that  of  finding  myself,  with  only  the  two  or  three 
mouths  which  it  was  my  privilege  to  feed,  the  sole  inher 
itor  of  the  old  clergyman's  wealth  of  fruits.  Throughout 
the  summer  there  were  cherries  and  currants,  and  then 
came  autumn,  with  his  immense  burden  of  apples,  drop 
ping  them  continually  from  his  overladen  shoulders  as  he 
trudged  along.  In  the  stillest  afternoons,  if  I  listened, 
the  thump  of  a  great  apple  was  audible,  falling  without  a 
breath  of  wind  from  the  mere  necessity  of  perfect  ripeness. 
And,  besides,  there  were  pear  trees  that  flung  down  bush 
els  upon  bushels  of  heavy  pears,  and  peach  trees  which,  in 
a  good  year,  tormented  me  with  peaches  neither  to  be 
eaten  nor  kept,  nor  without  labor  and  perplexity  to  be 
given  away.  The  idea  of  an  infinite  generosity  and  ex- 
haustless  bounty  on  the  part  of  our  mother  nature  was  well 
worth  obtaining  through  such  cares  as  these.  That  feel 
ing  can  be  enjoyed  in  perfection  only  by  the  natives  of 
summer  islands  where  the  bread-fruit,  the  cocoa,  the  palm 
and  the  orange  grow  spontaneously  and  hold  forth  the 
ever-ready  meal,  but  likewise  almost  as  well  by  a  man 
long  habituated  to  city  life  who  plunges  into  such 
a  solitude  as  that  of  the  Old  Manse,  where  he  plucks 
the  fruit  of  trees  that  he  did  not  plant,  and  which,  there 
fore,  to  my  heterodox  taste,  bear  the  closest  resemblance 
to  those  that  grow  in  Eden.  It  has  been  an  apo 
thegm  these  5,000  years  that  toil  sweetens  the  bread  it 
earns.  For  my  part  (speaking  from  hard  experience  ac 
quired  while  belaboring  the  rugged  furrows  of  13rook  farm) 
I  relish  best  the  free  gifts  of  providence. 

Not  that  it  can  be  disputed  that  the  light  toil  requisite 
to  cultivate  a  moderately  sized  garden  imparts  such  zest  to 
kitchen  vegetables  as  is  never  found  in  those  of  the  market 
gardener.  Childless  men,  if  they  would  know  something 
of  the  bliss  of  paternity,  should  plant  a  seed — be  it  squash, 
bean,  Indian  corn  or  perhaps  a  mere  flower  or  worthless 
weed — should  plant  it  with  their  own  hands  and  nurse  it 
from  infancy  to  maturity  altogether  by  their  own  care.  If 
there  be  not  too  many  of  them,  each  individual  plant  be 
comes  an  object  of  separate  interest.  My  garden  that 
skirted  the  avenue  of  the  manse,  was  of  precisely  by  the  right 
extent.  An  hour  or  two  of  morning  labor  was  all  that  it 
required,  but  I  used  to  visit  and  revisit  it  a  dozen  times  a 


10  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

day,  and  stand  in  deep  contemplation  over  my  vegetable 
progeny  with  a  love  that  nobody  could  share  or  conceive  of 
who  had  never  taken  part  in  the  process  of  creation.  It  was 
one  of  the  most  bewitching  sights  in  the  world  to  observe 
a  hill  of  beans  thrusting  aside  the  soil  or  a  row  of  early 
peas  just  peeping  forth  sufficiently  to  trace  a  line  of  delicate 
green.  Later  in  the  season  the  humming-birds  were  at 
tracted  by  the  blossoms  of  a  peculiar  variety  of  bean,  and 
they  were  a  joy  to  me — those  little  spiritual  visitants — for 
deigning  to  sip  any  food  out  of  my  nectar-cups.  Multi 
tudes  of  bees  used  to  bury  themselves  in  the  yellow  blossoms 
of  the  summer  squashes.  This  too  was  a  deep  satisfaction, 
although  when  they  had  laden  themselves  with  sweets  they 
flew  away  to  some  unknown  hive  which  would  give  back 
nothing  in  requital  of  what  my  garden  had  contributed. 
But  I  was  glad  thus  to  fling  a  benefaction  upon  the  passing 
breeze  with  the  certainty  that  somebody  must  profit  by  it, 
and  that  there  would  be  a  little  more  honey  in  the  world  to 
allay  the  sourness  arid  bitterness  which  mankind  is  always 
complaintng  of.  Yes,  indeed!  My  life  was  the  sweeter  for 
that  honey. 

Speaking  of  summer  squashes,  I  must  say  a  word  of  their 
beautiful  and  varied  forms.  They  presented  an  endless 
diversity  of  urns  and  vases,  shallow  or  deep,  scalloped  or 
plain,  molded  in  patterns  which  a  sculptor  would  do  well 
to  copy,  since  art  has  never  invented  anything  more  grace 
ful.  A  hundred  squashes  in  the  garden  were  worthy — in 
my  eyes,  at  least — of  being  rendered  indestructible  in  mar 
ble.  If  ever  Providence  (but  I  know  it  never  will)  should 
assign  me  a  superfluity  of  gold,  part  of  it  shall  be  expended 
for  a  service  of  plate  or  most  delicate  porcelain,  to  be 
wrought  into  the  shapes  of  summer  squashes  gathered  from 
vines  which  I  will  plant  with  my  own  hands.  As  dishes 
for  containing  vegetables  they  would  be  peculiarly 
appropriate. 

But  not  merely  the  squeamish  love  of  the  beautiful  was 
gratified  by  my  toil  in  the  kitchen-garden.  There  was  a 
hearty  enjoyment,  likewise,  in  observing  the  growth  of 
the  crook-necked  winter  squashes  from  the  first  little  bulb, 
with  the  withered  blossoms  adhering  to  it,  until  they  lay 
strewn  upon  the  soil,  big,  round  fellows,  hiding  their  heads 
beneath  the  leaves,  but  turning  their  great  yellow  rotundi 
ties  to  the  noontide  sun.  Gazing  at  them,  I  felt  that  by 


THE  OLD  MANSE.  H 

my  agency  something  worth  living  for  had  been  done.  A 
new  substance  was  born  into  the  world.  They  were  real 
and  tangible  existences  which  the  mind  could  seize  hold  of 
and  rejoice  in.  A  cabbage,  too — especially  the  early  Dutch 
cabbage,  which  swells  to  a  monstrous  circumference,  until 
its  ambitious  heart  often  bursts  asunder — is  a  matter  to  be 
proud  of  when  we  can  claim  a  share  with  the  earth  and 
sky  in  producing  it.  But,  after  all,  the  hugest  pleasure 
is  reserved  until  these  vegetable  children  of  ours  are 
smoking  on  the  table,  and  we,  like  Saturn,  make  a  meal  of 
them. 

What  with  the  river,  the  battle-field,  the  orchard  and 
the  garden,  the  reader  begins  to  despair  of  finding  his 
way  back  into  the  Old  Manse,  but  in  agreeable  weather  it 
is  the  truest  hospitality  to  keep  him  out  of  doors.  I  never 
grew  quite  acquainted  with  my  habitation  till  a  long  spell 
of  sulky  rain  had  confined  me  beneath  its  roof.  There 
could  not  be  a  more  somber  aspect  of  external  nature  than  as 
seen  from  the  windows  of  my  study.  The  great  willow 
tree  had  caught  and  retained  among  its  leaves  a  whole 
cataract  of  water,  to  be  shaken  down  at  intervals  by  the 
frequent  gusts  of  wind.  All  day  long,  and  for  a  week  to 
gether,  the  rain  was  drip-drip-dripping  and  splash-splash- 
splashing  from  the  eaves  and  bubbling  and  foaming  into 
the  tubs  beneath  the  spouts.  The  old  unpainted  shingles 
of  the  house  and  outbuildings  were  black  with  moisture, 
and  the  mosses  of  ancient  growth  upon  the  walls  looked 
green  and  fresh  as  if  they  were  the  newest  things  and  after 
thought  of  time.  The  usually  mirrored  surface  of  the 
river  was  blurred  by  an  infinity  of  rain-drops.  The  whole 
landscape  had  a  completely  water-soaked  appearance,  con 
veying  the  impression  that  the  earth  was  wet  through  like 
a  sponge,  while  the  summit  of  a  wooden  hill  about  a  mile 
distant  was  enveloped  in  a  dense  mist,  where  the  demon  of 
the  tempest  seemed  to  have  his  abiding-place,  and  to  be 
plotting  still  direr  inclemencies. 

Nature  has  no  kindness,  no  hospitality,  during  a  rain. 
In  the  fiercest  heat  of  sunny  days  she  retains  a  secret  mercy 
and  welcomes  the  wayfarer  to  shady  nooks  of  the  woods 
whither  the  sun  cannot  penetrate.  But  she  provides  no 
shelter  against  her  storms.  It  makes  us  shiver  to  think  of 
those  deep,  umbrageous  recesses,  those  overshadowing 
banks,  where  we  found  such  enjoyment  during  the  sultry 


12  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

afternoons.  Not  a  twig  of  foliage  there  but  would  dash  a 
little  shower  into  our  faces.  Looking  reproachfully  toward 
the  impenetrable  sky — if  sky  there  be  above  that  dismal 
uniformity  of  cloud — we  are  apt  to  murmur  against  the 
whole  system  of  the  universe,  since  it  involves  the  extinc 
tion  of  so  many  summer  days  in  so  short  a  life  by  the  hiss 
ing  and  spluttering  rain.  In  such  spells  of  weather — and 
it  is  to  be  supposed  such  weather  carne — Eve's  bower  in 
Paradise  must  have  been  but  a  cheerless  and  aguish  kind 
of  shelter,  nowise  comparable  to  the  old  parsonage,  which 
had  resources  of  its  own  to  beguile  the  week's  imprison 
ment.  The  idea  of  sleeping  on  a  couch  of  wet  roses  ! 

Happy  the  man  who  in  a  rainy  day  can  betake  himself 
to  a  huge  garret  stored,  like  that  of  the  manse,  with  lumber 
that  each  generation  has  left  behind  it  from  a  period  before 
the  revolution.  Our  garret  was  an  arched  hall  dimly 
illuminated  through  small  and  dusty  windows.  It  was  but 
a  twilight  at  the  best,  and  there  were  nooks — or,  rather, 
caverns — of  deep  obscurity,  the  secrets  of  which  I  never 
learned,  being  too  reverent  of  their  dust  and  cobwebs.  The 
beams  and  rafters,  roughly  hewn  and  with  strips  of  bark 
still  on  them,  and  the  rude  masonry  of  the  chimneys,  made 
the  garret  look  wild  and  uncivilized — an  aspect  unlike 
what  was  seen  elsewhere  in  the  quiet  and  decorous  old 
house.  But  on  one  side  there  was  a  little  whitewashed 
apartment  which  bore  the  traditionary  title  of  "  The 
Saint's  Chamber,"  because  holy  men  in  their  youth  had 
slept  and  studied  and  prayed  there.  With  its  elevated  re 
tirement,  its  one  window,  its  small  fire-place,  and  its  closet, 
convenient  for  an  oratory,  it  was  the  very  spot  where  a 
young  man  might  inspire  himself  with  solemn  enthusiasm 
and  cherish  saintly  dreams.  The  occupants  at  various 
epochs  had  left  brief  records  and  speculations  inscribed 
upon  the  walls.  There,  too,  hung  a  tattered  and  shriveled 
roll  of  canvas  which  on  inspection  proved  to  be  the  forcibly 
wrought  picture  of  a  clergyman  in  wig,  band  and  gown, 
holding  a  bible  in  his  hand.  As  I  turned  his  face  toward 
the  light  he  eyed  me  with  an  air  of  authority  such  as  men 
of  his  profession  seldom  assume  in  our  days.  The  original 
had  been  pastor  of  the  parish  more  than  a  century  ago — 
a  friend  of  Whitefield,  and  almost  his  equal  in  fervid 
eloquence.  I  bowed  before  the  effigy  of  the  dignified 
divine,  and  felt  as  if  I  had  now  met  face  to  face  with  the 


THE  OLD  MANSE.  13 

ghost  by  whom,  as  there  was  reason  to  apprehend,  the 
manse  was  haunted. 

Houses  of  any  antiquity  in  New  England  are  so  invari 
ably  possessed  with  spirits  that  the  matter  seems  hardly 
worth  alluding  to.  Our  ghost  used  to  heave  deep  sighs  in 
a  particular  corner  of  the  parlor,  and  sometimes  rustled 
paper  as  if  he  were  turning  over  a  sermon  in  the  long  up 
per  entry — where,  nevertheless,  he  was  invisible  in  spite  of 
the  bright  moonshine  that  fell  through  the  eastern  window. 
Not  improbably  he  wished  me  to  edit  and  publish  a  selec 
tion  from  a  chest  full  of  manuscript  discourses  that  stood 
in  the  garret.  Once,  while  llillard  and  other  friends  sat 
talking  with  us  in  the  twilight,  there  came  a  rustling  noise 
as  of  a  minister's  silk  gown  sweeping  through  the  very 
midst  of  the  company  so  closely  as  almost  to  brush  against 
the  chairs.  Still,  there  was  nothing  visible.  A  yet  stran 
ger  business  was  that  of  a  ghostly  servant-maid  who  used 
to  be  heard  in  the  kitchen  at  deepest  midnight  grinding 
coffee,  cooking,  ironing — performing,  in  short,  all  kinds  of 
domestic  labor,  although  no  traces  of  anything  accom 
plished  could  be  detected  the  next  morning.  Some  neg 
lected  duty  of  her  servitude — some  ill-starched  ministerial 
band — disturbed  the  poor  damsel  in  her  grave  and  kept  her 
to  work  without  any  wages* 

But  to  return  from  this  digression.  A  part  of  my  prede 
cessor's  library  was  stored  in  the  garret — no  unlit  recepta 
cle,  indeed,  for  such  dreary  trash  as  comprised  the  greater 
number  of  volumes.  The  old  books  would  have  been 
worth  nothing  at  an  auction.  In  this  venerable  garret, 
however,  they  possessed  an  interest  quite  apart  from  their 
literary  value  as  heirlooms,  many  of  which  had  been  trans 
mitted  down  through  a  series  of  consecrated  hands  from 
the  days  of  the  mighty  puritan  divines.  Autographs  of 
famous  names  were  to  be  seen  in  faded  ink  on  some  of 
their  fly-leaves,  and  there  were  marginal  observations  or 
interpolated  pages  closely  covered  with  manuscript  in 
illegible  short-hand,  perhaps  concealing  matter  of  pro- 
f round  truth  and  wisdom.  The  world  will  never  be  the 
better  for  it.  A  few  of  the  books  were  Latin  folios  written 
by  catholic  authors;  others  demolished  papistry  as  with  a 
sledge-hammer  in  plain  English.  A  dissertation  on  the 
book  of  Job — which  only  Job  himself  could  have  had 
patience  to  read — filled  at  least  a  score  of  small,  thickset 


14  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

quartos  at  the  rate  of  two  or  three  volumes  to  a  chapter. 
Then  there  was  a  vast  folio  "  Body  of  Divinity  " — too 
corpulent  a  body,  it  might  be  feared,  to  comprehend  the 
spiritual  element  of  religion.  Volumes  of  this  form  dated 
back  200  years  or  more,  and  were  generally  bound  in  black 
leather,  exhibiting  precisely  such  an  appearance  as  we 
should  attribute  to  books  of  enchantment.  Others  equally 
antique  were  of  a  size  proper  to  be  carried  in  the  large 
waistcoat  pockets  of  old  times — diminutive,  but  as  black 
as  their  bulkier  brethren,  and  abundantly  interfused  with 
Greek  and  Latin  quotations.  These  little  old  volumes 
impressed  me  as  if  they  had  been  intended  for  very  large 
ones,  but  had  been  unfortunately  blighted  at  an  early 
stage  of  their  growth. 

The  rain  pattered  upon  the  roof  and  the  sky  gloomed 
through  the  dusty  garret  windows  while  I  burrowed  among 
these  venerable  books  in  search  of  any  living  thought  which 
should  burn  like  a  coal  of  fire  or  glow  like  an  inextinguish 
able  gem  beneath  the  dead  trumpery  that  had  long  hidden 
it.  But  I  found  no  such  treasure — all  was  dead  alike;  and 
I  could  not  but  muse  deeply  and  wonderingly  upon  the 
humiliating  fact  that  the  works  of  man's  intellect  decay 
like  those  of  his  hands.  Thought  grows  moldy.  What 
was  good  and  nourishing  food  for  the  spirits  of  one  gen 
eration  affords  no  sustenance  for  the  next.  Book  of  re 
ligion,  however,  cannot  be  considered  a  fair  test  of  the 
enduring  and  vivacious  properties  of  human  thought,  be 
cause  such  books  so  seldom  really  touch  upon  their  ostensi 
ble  subject,  and  have,  therefore,  so  little  business  to  be 
written  at  all.  So  long  as  an  unlettered  soul  can  attain  to 
saving  grace  there  would  seem  to  be  no  deadly  error  in 
holding  theological  libraries  to  be  accumulations  of,  for 
the  most  part,  stupendous  impertinence. 

Many  of  the  books  had  accrued  in  the  latter  years  of  the 
last  clergyman's  lifetime.  These  threatened  to  be  of  even 
less  interest  than  the  elder  works  a  century  hence  to  any 
curious  inquirer,  who  should  then  rummage  them  as  I  was 
doing  now.  Volumes  of  the  Liberal  Preacher  and  Chris 
tian  Examiner,  occasional  sermons,  controversial  pam 
phlets,  tracts  and  other  productions  of  a  like  fugitive 
nature,  took  the  place  of  the  thick  and  heavy  volumes  of 
past  time.  In  a  physical  point  of  view  there  was  much  the 
same  difference  as  between  a  feather  and  a  lump  of  lead, 


THE  OLD  MANSE.  15 

but,  intellectually  regarded,  the  specific  gravity  of  old  and 
new  was  about  on  par.  Both,  also,  were  alike  frigid.  The 
elder  books,  nevertheless,  seemed  to  have  been  earnestly 
written  and  might  be  conceived  to  have  possessed  warmth 
at  some  former  period,  although,  with  the  lapse  of  time, 
the  heated  masses  had  cooled  down  even  to  the  freezing- 
point.  The  frigidity  of  the  modern  productions,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  characteristic  and  inherent  and  evidently 
had  little  to  do  with  the  writers'  qualities  of  mind  and 
heart.  In  fine,  of  this  whole  dusty  heap  of  literature,  I 
tossed  aside  all  the  sacred  part,  and  felt  myself  none  the 
less  a  Christian  for  eschewing  it.  There  appeared  no  hope 
of  either  mounting  to  the  better  world  on  a  gothic  stair 
case  of  ancient  folios,  or  of  flying  thither  on  the  wings  of 
a  modern  tract. 

Nothing,  strange  to  say,  retained  any  sap,  except  what 
had  been  written  for  the  passing  day  and  year,  without  the 
remotest  pretension  or  idea  of  permanence.  There  were  a 
few  old  newspapers  and  still  older  almanacs,  which  repro 
duced,  to  my  mental  eye,  the  epochs  when  they  had  issued 
from  the  press,  with  a  distinctness  that  was  altogether  un 
accountable.  It  was  as  if  I  had  found  bits  of  magic  look 
ing-glass  among  the  books,  with  the  images  of  a  vanished 
century  in  them.  I  turned  my  eyes  toward  the  tattered 
picture  above  mentioned  and  asked  of  the  austere  divine 
wherefore  it  was  that  he  and  his  brethren,  after  the  most 
painful  rummaging  and  groping  into  their  minds,  had  been 
able  to  produce  nothing  half  so  real  as  these  newspaper 
scribblers  and  almanac-makers  had  thrown  off  in  the  effer 
vescence  of  a  moment.  The  portrait  responded  not;  so  I 
sought  an  answer  for  myself.  It  is  the  age  itself  that 
writes  newspapers  and  almanacs,  Avhich  therefore  have  a 
distinct  purpose  and  meaning  at  the  time  and  a  kind  of 
intelligible  truth  for  all  times;  whereas,  most  other  works, 
being  written  by  men  who.  in  the  very  act  set  themselves 
apart  from  their  age,  are  likely  to  possess  little  significance 
when  new  and  none  at  all  when  old.  Genius,  indeed, 
melts  many  ages  into  one  and  thus  effects  something  per 
manent,  yet  still  with  a  similarity  of  office  to  that  of  the 
more  ephemeral  writer.  A  work  of  genius  is  but  the 
newspaper  of  a  century,  or  perchance  of  a  hundred 
centuries. 

Lightly  as  I  have  spoken  of  these  old  books,  there  yet 


16  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

lingers  with  me  a  superstitious  reverence  for  literature  of 
all  kinds.  A  bound  volume  has  a  charm  in  my  eyes  sim 
ilar  to  what  scraps  of  manuscript  possess  for  the  good  Mus 
sulman  ;  he  imagines  that  those  wind-wafted  records  are 
perhaps  hallowed  by  some  sacred  verse  and  I  that  every 
new  book  or  antique  one  may  contain  the  "  Open,  sesame  !" 
— the  spell  to  disclose  treasures  hidden  in  some  unsus 
pected  cave  of  truth.  Thus  it  was  not  without  sadness  that 
I  turned  away  from  the  library  of  the  Old  Manse. 

Blessed  was  the  sunshine  when  it  came  again,  at  the 
close  of  another  stormy  day,  beaming  from  the  edge  of  the 
western  horizon,  while  the  massive  firmament  of  clouds 
threw  down  all  the  gloom  it  could,  but  served  only  to 
kindle  the  golden  light  into  a  more  brilliant  glow  by  the 
strongly  contrasted  shadows.  Heaven  smiled  at  the  earth 
long  unseen  from  beneath  its  heavy  eyelid.  To-morrow 
for  the  hill-tops  and  the  wood-paths. 

Or  it  might  be  that  Ellery  Charming  came  up  the  avenue 
to  join  me  in  a  fishing  excursion  on  the  river.  Strange 
and  happy  times  were  those  when  we  cast  aside  all  irksome 
forms  and  straight-laced  habitudes  and  delivered  ourselves 
up  to  the  free  air,  to  live  like  the  Indians  or  any  less  con 
ventional  race  during  one  bright  semi-circle  of  the  sun. 
Rowing  our  boat  against  the  current  between  wide  mead 
ows,  we  turned  aside  into  the  Assabeth.  A  more  lonely 
stream  than  this  for  a  mile  above  its  junction  with  the  Con 
cord  has  never  flowed  on  earth — nowhere,  indeed,  except  to 
lave  the  interior  regions  of  a  poet's  imagination.  It  is 
sheltered  from  the  breeze  by  woods  and  a  hillside;  so  that 
elsewhere  there  might  be  a  hurricane  and  here  scarcely  a 
ripple  across  the  shaded  water.  The  current  lingers  along 
so  gently  that  the  mere  force  of  the  boatman's  will  seems 
sufficient  to  propel  his  craft  against  it.  It  comes  flowing 
softly  through  the  midmost  privacy  and  deepest  heart  of  a 
wood  which  whispers  it  to  be  quiet,  while  the  stream  whis 
pers  back  again  from  its  sedgy  borders,  as  if  river  and  wood 
were  hushing  one  another  to  sleep.  Yes,  the  river  sleeps 
along  its  course  and  dreams  of  the  sky  and  of  the  cluster 
ing  foliage,  amid  which  fall  showers  of  broken  sunlight, 
imparting  specks  of  vivid  cheerfulness,  in  contrast  with  the 
quiet  depth  of  the  prevailing  tint.  Of  all  this  scene  the 
slumbering  river  had  a  dream-picture  in  its  bosom. 
AY  Inch,  after  all,  was  the  most  real — the  picture  or  the 


THE  OLD  MANSE.  17 

original,  the  objects  palpable  to  our  grosser  senses  or  their 
apotheosis  in  the  stream  beneath?  Surely  the  disembodied 
images  stand  in  closer  relation  to  the  soul.  But  both  the 
original  and  the  reflection  had  here  an  ideal  charm,  and, 
had  it  been  a  thought  more  wild,  I  could  have  fancied  that 
this  river  had  strayed  forth  out  of  the  rich  scenery  of  my 
companion's  inner  world;  only  the  vegetation  along  its 
banks  should  then  have  had  an  oriental  character. 

Gentle  and  unobtrusive  as  the  river  is,  yet  the  tranquil 
woods  seem  hardly  satisfied  to  allow  its  passage.  The 
trees  are  rooted  on  the  very  verge  of  the  water  and  dip  their 
pendant  branches  into  it.  At  one  spot  there  is  a  lofty 
bank  on  the  slope  of  which  grow  some  hemlocks,  declining 
across  the  stream  with  outstretched  arms,  as  if  resolute  to 
take  the  plunge.  In  other  places  the  banks  are  almost  on 
a  level  with  the  water;  so  that  the  quiet  congregation  of 
trees  set  their  feet  in  the  flood  and  are  fringed  with  foliage 
down  to  the  surface.  Cardinal-flowers  kindle  their  spiral 
flames  and  illuminate  the  dark  nooks  among  the  shrubbery. 
The  pond-lily  grows  abundantly  along  the  margin — that 
delicious  flower  which,  as  Thoreau  tells  me,  opens  its 
virgin  bosom  to  the  first  sunlight  and  perfects  its  being 
through  the  magic  of  that  genial  kiss.  lie  has  beheld 
beds  of  them  unfolding  in  due  succession  as  the  sunrise 
stole  gradually  from  flower  to  flower — a  sight  not  to  be 
hoped  for  unless  when  a  poet  adjusts  his  inward  eye  to  a 
proper  focus  with  the  outward  organ.  Grapevines  here 
and  there  twine  themselves  around  shrub  and  tree  and  hang 
their  clusters  over  the  waters  within  reach  of  the  boatman's 
hand.  Oftentimes  they  unite  two  trees  of  alien  race  in  an 
inextricable  twine,  marrying  the  hemlock  and  the  maple 
against  their  will  and  enriching  them  with  a  purple  off 
spring  of  which  neither  is  the  parent.  One  of  these  am 
bitious  parasites  has  climbed  into  the  upper  branches  of  a 
tall  white  pine,  and  is  still  ascending  from  bough  to  bough, 
unsatisfied  till  it  shall  crown  the  tiee's  airy  summit  with  a 
wreath  of  its  broad  foliage  and  a  cluster  of  its  grapes. 

The  winding  course  of  the  stream  continually  shut  out 
the  scene  behind  us  and  revealed  as  cairn  and  lovely  a  one 
before.  We  glided  from  depth  to  depth  and  breathed  new 
seclusions  at  every  turn.  The  shy  kingfisher  flew  from  the 
withered  branch  close  at  hand  to  another  at  a  distance, 
uttering  a  shrill  cry  of  anger  or  alarm,  Ducks  that  had 


18  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

been  floating  there  since  the  preceding  eve  were  startled  at 
our  approach,  and  skimmed  along  the  glassy  river,  breaking 
its  dark  surface  with  a  bright  streak.  The  pickerel  leaped 
from  among  the  lily-pads.  The  turtle  sunning  itself  upon 
a  rock  or  at  the  root  of  a  tree  slid  suddenly  into  the  water 
with  a  plunge.  The  painted  Indian  who  paddled  his  canoe 
along  the  Assabeth  300  years  ago  could  hardly  have  seen  a 
wilder  gentleness  displayed  upon  its  banks  and  reflected  in 
its  bosom  than  we  did. 

Nor  could  the  same  Indian  have  prepared  his  noontide 
meal  with  more  simplicity.  We  drew  up  our  skiff  at  some 
point  where  the  overarching  shade  formed  a  natural  bower, 
and  there  kindled  a  fire  with  the  pine-cones  and  decayed 
branches  that  lay  strewn  plentifully  around.  Soon  the. 
smoke  ascended  among  the  trees  impregnated  with  a  savory 
incense — not  heavy,  dull  and  surfeiting,  like  the  steam  of 
cookery  within  doors,  but  sprightly  and  piquant.  The 
smell  of  our  feast  was  akin  to  the  woodland  odors  with 
which  it  mingled.  There  was  no  sacrilege  committed  by 
our  intrusion  there;  the  sacred  solitude  was  hospitable  and 
granted  us  free  leave  to  cook  and  eat  in  the  recess  that  was 
at  once  our  kitchen  and  banqueting-hall.  It  is  strange 
what  humble  offices  may  be  performed  in  a  beautiful  scene 
without  destroying  its  poetry.  Our  fire,  red-gleaming 
among  the  trees  and  we  beside  it  busied  with  culinary  rites 
and  spreading  out  our  meal  on  a  moss-grown  log;  all 
seemed  in  unison  with  the  river  gliding  by  and  the  foliage 
rustling  over  us.  And,  what  was  strangest,,  neither  did  our 
mirth  seem  to  disturb  the  propriety  of  the  solemn  woods, 
although  the  hobgoblins  of  the  old  wilderness  and  the  will- 
o'-the-wisps  that  glimmered  in  the  marshy  places  might 
have  come  trooping  to  share  our  table-talk  and  have  added 
their  shrill  laughter  to  our  merriment.  It  was  the  veiy 
spot  in  which  to  utter  the  extremest  nonsense  or  the  pro 
found  est  wisdom,  or  that  ethereal  product  of  the  mind 
which  partakes  of  both  and  may  become  one  or  the  other 
in  correspondence  with  the  faith  and  insight  of  the  auditor. 

So,  amid  sunshine  and  shadow,  rustling  leaves  and  sighing 
waters,  up  gushed  our  talk  like  the  babble  of  a  fountain. 
The  evanescent  spray  was  Ellery's  and  his,  too,  the  lumps 
of  golden  thought  that  lay  glimmering  in  the  fountain's 
bed  and  brightened  both  outfaces  by  the  reflection.  Could 
be  have  drawn  out  that  virgin  gold  and  stamped  it  with  the 


THE  OLD  MANSE.  19 

mint-mark  that  alone  gives  currency,  the  world  might  have 
had  the  profit  and  he  the  fame.  My  mind  was  the  richer 
merely  by  the  knowledge  that  it  was  there.  But  the  chief 
profit  of  those  wild  days,  to  him  and  me,  lay,  not  in  any 
definite  idea,  not  in  any  angular  or  rounded  truth  which  we 
dug  out  of  the  shapeless  mass  of  problematical  stuff,  but  in 
the  freedom  which  we  thereby  won  from  all  custom  and 
conventionalism  and  fettering  influences  of  men  on  man. 
We  were  so  free  to-day  that  it  was  impossible  to  be  slaves 
again  to-morrow.  When  we  crossed  the  threshold  of  the 
house  or  trod  the  thronged  pavements  of  a  city,  still  the 
leaves  of  the  trees  that  overhang  the  Assabeth  were  whis 
pering  to  us:  "  Be  free!  Be  free!"  Therefore  along  that 
shady  river-bank  there  are  spots  marked  with  a  heap  of 
ashes  and  half-consumed  brands  only  less  sacred  in  my  re 
membrance  than  the  hearth  of  a  household  fire. 

And  yet  how  sweet  as  we  floated  homeward  adown  the 
golden  river  at  sunset;  how  sweet  it  was  to  return  within 
the  system  of  human  society,  not  as  to  a  dungeon  and  a 
chain,  but  as  to  a  stately  edifice  where  we  could  go  forth  at 
will  into  statelier  simplicity!  llow  gently,  too,  did  the 
sight  of  the  Old  Manse — best  seen  from  the  river,  over 
shadowed  with  its  willow  and  all  environed  about  with  the 
foliage  of  its  orchard  and  avenue — how  gently  did  its  gray, 
homely  aspect  rebuke  the  speculative  extravagances  of  the 
clay!  It  had  grown  sacred  in  connection  with  the  artificial 
life  against  which  we  inveighed;  it  had  been  a  home  for 
many  years  in  spite  of  all;  it  was  my  home,  too;  and,  with 
these  thoughts,  it  seemed  to  me  that  all  the  artifice  and 
conventionalism  of  life  was  but  an  impalpable  thinness 
upon  its  surface  and  that  the  depth  below  was  none  the 
worse  for  it.  Once,  as  we  turned  our  boat  to  the  bank, 
there  was  a  cloud  in  the  shape  of  an  immensely  gigantic 
figure  of  a  hound  couched  above  the  house,  as  if  keeping 
guard  over  it.  Gazing  at  this  symbol  I  prayed  that  the 
upper  influences  might  long  protect  the  institutions  that 
had  grown  out  of  the  heart  of  mankind. 

If  ever  my  readers  should  decide  to  give  up  civilized  life, 
cities,  houses,  and  whatever  moral  or  material  enormities, 
in  addition  to  these,  the  perverted  ingenuity  of  our  race 
has  contrived,  let  it  be  in  the  early  autumn.  Then  nature 
will  love  him  better  than  at  any  other  season  and  will  take 
him  to  her  bosom,  with  a  more  motherly  tenderness,  I 


20  MOSSKS  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

could  scarcely  endure  the  roof  of  the  old  house  above  me 
in  those  first  autumnal  days.  How  early  in  the  summer, 
too,  the  prophecy  of  autumn  comes!  earlier  in  some  years 
than  in  others,  sometimes  even  in  the  first  weeks  of  July. 
There  is  no  other  feeling  like  what  is  caused  by  this  faint, 
doubtful,  yet  real  perception — if  it  be  not,  rather,  a  fore 
boding — of  the  year's  decay,  so  blessedly  sweet  and  sad  in 
the  same  breath.  Did  I  say  that  there  was  no  feeling  like 
it?  Ah!  but  there  is! — a  half -acknowledged  melancholy 
like  to  this — when  we  stand  in  the  perfected  vigor  of  our 
life  and  feel  that  time  has  now  given  us  all  his  flowers,  and 
that  the  next  work  of  his  never-idle  fingers  must  be  to 
steal  them  one  by  one  away! 

I  have  forgotten  whether  the  song  of  the  cricket  be  not 
as  early  a  token  of  autumn's  approach  as  any  other — that 
song  which  may  be  called  an  audible  stillness;  for,  though 
very  loud  and  heard  afar,  yet  the  mind  does  not  take  note 
of  it  as  a  sound,  so  completely  is  its  individual  existence 
merged  among  the  accompanying  characteristics  of  the 
season.  Alas  for  the  pleasant  summer-time!  In  August 
the  grass  is  still  verdant  on  the  hills  and  in  the  valleys;  the 
foliage  of  the  trees  is  as  dense  as  ever  and  as  green;  the 
flowers  gleam  forth  in  richer  abundance  along  the  margin 
of  the  river  and  by  the  stone  walls  and  deep  among  the 
woods;  the  days,  too,  are  as  fervid  now  as  they  were  a 
month  ago;  and  yet  in  every  breath  of  wind  and  in  every 
beam  of  sunshine  we  hear  the  whispered  farewell  and  be 
hold 'the  parting  smile  of  a  dear  friend.  There  is  a  cool 
ness  amid  all  the  heat — a  mildness  in  the  blazing  noon. 
Not  a  breeze  can  stir  but  it  thrills  us  with  the  breath  of 
autumn.  A  pensive  glory  is  seen  in  the  far  golden  gleams 
among  the  shadows  of  the  trees.  The  flowers — even  the 
brightest  of  them,  and  they  are  the  most  gorgeous  of  the 
year — have  this  gentle  sadness  wedded  to  their  pomp,  and 
typify  the  character  of  the  delicious  time,  each  within 
itself.  The  brilliant  cardinal-flower  has  never  seemed  gay 
to  me. 

Still  later  in  the  season  nature's  tenderness  waxes 
stronger.  It  is  impossible  not  to  be  fond  of  our  mother 
now, lor  she  is  so  fond  of  us.  At  other  periods  she  does 
not  make  this  impression  on  me,  or  only  at  rare  intervals, 
but  in  those  genial  days  of  autumn,  when  she  has  perfected 
h§r  harvests  and  accomplished  every  needful  thing  that 


THE  OLD  MANSE.  21 

was  given  her  to  do,  then  she  overflows  with  a  blessed 
superfluity  of  love.  She  has  leisure  to  caress  her  children 
now.  It  is  good  to  be  alive,  and  at  such  times.  Thank 
heaven  for  breath!  yes,  for  mere  breath,  when  it  is  made 
up  of  a  heavenly  breeze  like  this.  It  comes  with  a  real 
kiss  upon  our  cheeks.  It  would  linger  fondly  around  us  if 
it  might,  but,  since  it  must  be  gone,  it  embraces  us  with 
its  whole  kindly  heart  and  passes  onward  to  embrace  like 
wise  the  next  thing  that  it  meets.  A  blessing  is  flung 
abroad  and  scattered  far  and  wide  over  the  earth,  to  be 
gathered  up  by  all  who  choose.  I  recline  upon  the  still 
unwithered  grass  and  whisper  to  myself:  "  Oh,  perfect 
day!  Oh,  beautiful  world!  0  beneficent  God!"  And  it 
is  the  promise  of  a  blessed  eternity,  for  our  Creator  would 
never  have  made  such  lovely  days  and  have  given  us  the 
deep  hearts  to  enjoy  them  above  and  beyond  all  thought 
unless  we  were  meant  to  be  immortal.  This  sunshine  is 
the  golden  pledge  thereof.  It  beams  through  the  gates  of 
paradise  and  shows  us  glimpses  far  inward. 

By  and  by — in  a  little  time — the  outward  world  puts  on 
a  drear  austerity.  On  some  October  morning  there  is  a 
heavy  hoar-frost  on  the  grass  and  along  the  tops  of  the 
fences,  and  at  sunrise  the  leaves  fall  from  the  trees  of  our 
avenue  without  a  breath  of  wind,  quietly  descending  by 
their  own  weight.  All  summer  long  they  have  murmured 
like  the  noise  of  waters;  they  have  roared  loudly  while  the 
branches  were  wrestling  with  the  thunder-gust;  they  have 
made  music  both  glad  and  solemn;  they  have  attuned  my 
thoughts  by  their  quiet  sound  as  I  paced  to  and  fro  beneath 
the  arch  of  intermingling  boughs.  Xow  they  can  only 
rustle  under  my  feet.  Henceforth  the  gray  parsonage 
begins  to  assume  a  larger,  importance,  and  draws  to  its 
fireside — for  the  abomination  of  the  air-tight  stove  is  re 
served  till  wintry  weather — draws  closer  and  closer  to  its 
fireside  the  vagrant  impulses  that  had  gone  wandering 
about  through  the  summer. 

When  summer  was  dead  and  buried,  the  Old  Manse  be 
came  as  lonely  as  a  hermitage.  Not  that  ever — in  my 
time,  at  least — it  had  been  thronged  with  company.  But 
at  no  rare  intervals  we  welcomed  some  friend  out  of  the 
dusty  glare  and  tumult  of  the  world  and  rejoiced  to  share 
with  him  the  transparent  obscurity  that  was  floating  over 
us,  Iu  one  respect  our  precincts  were  like  the  enchanted 


22  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

ground  through  which  the  pilgrim  traveled  on  his  way  to 
the  celestial  city.  The  guests,  each  and  all,  felt  a  slum 
berous  influence  upon  them;  they  fell  asleep  in  chairs  or 
took  a  more  deliberate  siesta  on  the  sofa,  or  were  seen 
stretched  among  the  shadows  of  the  orchard,  looking  up 
dreamily  th  rough  the  boughs.  They  could  not  have  paid 
a  more  acceptable  compliment  to  my  abode  nor  to  my  own 
qualities  as  a  host,  y  held  it  as  a  proof  that  they  left 
their  cares  behind  them  as  they  passed  between  the  stone 
gate-posts  at  the  entrance  of  our  avenue,  and  that  the  so 
powerful  opiate  was  the  abundance  of  peace  and  quiet 
within  and  all  around  us.)0thers  could  give  them  pleasure 
and  amusement  or  instruction — these  could  be  picked  up 
anywhere — but  it  was  for  me  to  give  them  rest.  Kest  in  a 
life  of  trouble  !  What  better  could  be  done  for  those 
weary  and  world-worn  spirits?  for  him  whose  career  of  per 
petual  action  was  impeded  and  harassed  by  the  rarest  of 
his  powers  and  the  richest  of  his  acquirements?  for  an 
other,  who  had  thrown  his  ardent  heart  from  earliest  youth 
into  the  strife  of  politics,  and  now,  perchance,  began  to 
suspect  that  one  lifetime  is  too  brief  for  the  accomplish 
ment  of  any  lofty  aim?  for  her  on  whose  feminine  ifature 
had  been  imposed  the  heavy  gift  of  intellectual  power 
such  as  a  strong  man  might  have  staggered  under,  and  with 
it  the  necessity  to  act  upon  the  world?  In  a  word,  not  to 
multiply  instances,  what  better  could  be  done  for  anybody 
who  came  within  our  magic  circle  than  to  throw  the  spell 
of  a  magic  spirit  over  him?  And  when  it  had  wrought  its 
full  effect,  then  we  dismissed  him  with  but  misty  reminis- 
cences,*as  if  he  had  been  dreaming  of  usj 

Were  I  to  adopt  a  pet  idea,  as  so  many  people  do,  and 
fondle  it  in  my  embraces  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others,  it 
would  be  that  the  great  want  which  mankind  labors  under 
at  this  present  period  is  sleep!  The  world  should  recline 
its  vast  head  on  the  first  convenient  pillow  and  take  an 
age-long  nap.  It  has  gone  distracted  through  a  morbid 
activity,  and,  while  preternaturally  wide-awake,  is  never 
theless  tormented  by  visions  that  seem  real  to  it  now,  but 
would  assume  their  true  aspect  and  character  were  all 
things  once  set  right  by  an  interval  of  sound  repose.  This 
is  the  only  method  of  getting  rid  of  old  delusions  and 
avoiding  new  ones —  of  regenerating  our  race,  so  that  it 
might  in  due  time  awake  as  an  infant  out  of  dewy  slumber, 


THE  OLD  MANSE.  23 

of  restoring  to  us  the  simple  perception  of  what  is  right 
and  the  single-hearted  desire  to  achieve  it,  both  of  which 
have  long  been  lost  in  consequence  of  this  weary  activity 
of  brain  and  torpor  or  passion  of  the  heart  that  now  afflict 
the  universe.  Stimulants — the  only  mode  of  treatment 
hitherto  attempted — cannot  quell  the  disease;  they  do  but 
heighten  the  delirium. 

Let  not  the  above  paragraph  ever  be  quoted  against  the 
author,  for,  though  tinctured  with  its  modicum  of  truth, 
it  is  the  result  and  expression  of  what  he  knew,  while  lie 
was  writing  it,  to  be  but  a  distorted  survey  of  the  state 
and  prospects  of  mankind.  There  were  circumstances 
around  me  which  made  it  difficult  to  view  the  world  pre 
cisely  as  it  exists,  for,  severe  and  sober  as  was  the  Old 
Manse,  it  was  necessary  to  go  but  a  little  way  beyond  its 
threshhold  before  meeting  with  stranger  moral  shapes  of 
men  than  might  have  been  encountered  elsewhere  in  a 
circuit  of  1,000  miles. 

These  hobgoblins  of  flesh  and  blood  were  attracted 
thither  by  the  widespread  influence  of  a  great  original 
thinker  who  had  his  earthly  abode  at  the  opposite  extrem 
ity  of  our  village.  His  mind  acted  upon  other  minds  of 
a  certain  constitution  with  wonderful  magnetism,  and 
drew  many  men  upon  long  pilgrimages  to  speak  with  him 
face  to  face.  Young  visionaries  to  whom  just  so  much 
of  insight  had  been  imparted  as  to  make  life  all  a  laby 
rinth  around  them,  came  to  seek  the  clew  that  should 
guide  them  out  of  their  self-involved  bewilderment. 
Gray-headed  theorists,  whose  systems  at  first  air  had  finally 
imprisoned  them  in  an  iron  frame  work,  traveled  pain 
fully  to  his  door,  not  to  ask  deliverance,  but  to  invite  the 
free  spirit  into  their  own  thraldom.  People  that  had 
lighted  on  a  new  thought,  or  a  thought  that  they  fancied 
new,  came  to  Emerson,  as  the  finder  of  a  glittering  gem 
hastens  to  a  lapidary  to  ascertain  its  quality  and  value. 
Uncertain,  troubled,  earnest  wanderers  through  the  mid 
night  of  the  moral  world,  beheld  his  intellectual  fire  as  a 
beacon  burning  on  a  hill-top,  and,  climbing  the  difficult 
ascent,  looked  forth  into  the  surrounding  obscurity  more 
hopefully  than  hitherto.  The  light  revealed  objects  un 
seen  before — mountains,  gleaming  lakes,  glimpses  of  a 
creation  among  chaos — but  also,  as  was  unavoidable,  it  at 
tracted  bats  and  owls  and  the  whole  host  of  night-birds, 


24  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

which  flapped  their  dusky  wings  against  the  gazer's  eyes, 
and  sometimes  were  mistaken  for  fowls  of  angelic  feather. 
Such  delusions  always  hover  nigh  whenever  a  beacon-fire 
of  truth  is  kindled. 

For  myself,  there  had  been  epochs  of  my  life  when  I, 
too,  might  have  asked  of  this  prophet,  the  master-word 
that  should  solve  the  riddle  of  the  universe;  but  now, 
being  happy,  I  felt  as  if  there  were  no  question  to  be  put, 
and,  therefore,  admired  Emerson  as  a  poet  of  deep  beauty 
and  austere  tenderness,  but  sought  nothing  from  him  as 
a  philosopher.  It  was  good,  nevertheless,  to  meet  him  in 
the  wood-paths,  or  sometimes  in  our  avenue,  with  that 
pure,  intellectual  gleam  diffused  about  his  presence,  like 
the  garment  of  a  shining  one;  and  he  so  quiet,  so  simple, 
so  without  pretension,  encountering  each  man  alive  as  if 
expecting  to  receive  more  than  he  could  impart.  And,  in 
truth,  the  heart  of  many  an  ordinary  man  had,  perchance, 
inscriptions  which  he  could  not  read.  But  it  was  im 
possible  to  dwell  in  this  vicinity  without  inhaling  more  or 
less  the  mountain-atmosphere  of  his  lofty  thought;  which, 
in  the  brains  of  some  people  wrought  a  singular  giddiness, 
new  truth  being  as  heady  as  new  wine.  Never  was  a  poor 
little  country  village  infested  with  such  a  variety  of  queer, 
strangely-dressed,  oddly  behaved  mortals,  most  of  whom 
took  upon  themselves  to  be  important  agents  of  the  world's 
destiny,  yet  were  simply  bores  of  a  very  intense  water. 
Such,  I  imagine,  is  the  invariable  character  of  persons  who 
crowd  so  closely  about  an  original  thinker  as  to  draw  in  his 
unuttered  breath,  and  thus  become  imbued  with  a  false 
originality.  This  triteness  of  novelty  is  enough  to  make 
any  man  of  common  sense  blaspheme  at  all  ideas  of  less 
than  a  century's  standing,  and  pray  that  the  world  may  be 
petrified  and  rendered  immovable  in  precisely  the  worst 
moral  and  physical  state  that  it  ever  yet  arrived  at.  rather 
than  be  benefited  by  such  schemes  of  such  philosophers. 

And  now  I  begin  to  feel — and  perhaps  should  have 
sooner  felt — that  we  have  talked  enough  of  the  Old  Manse. 
Mind  honored  reader,  it  may  be,  will  vilify  the  poor  author 
as  an  egotist  for  babbling  through  so  many  pages  about  a 
moss-grown  country  parsonage  and  his  life  within  its  walls 
and  on  the  river  and  in  the  woods  and  the  influences  that 
wrought  upon  him  from  all  these  sources.  My  conscience, 
however,  does  not  reproach  me  with  betraying  anything 


TEE  OLD  MANSW.  25 

too  sacredly  individual  to  be  revealed  by  a  human  spirit  to 
its  brother  or  sister  spirit.  How  narrow — how  shallow  and 
scanty,  too — is  the  stream  of  thought  that  has  been  flowing 
from  my  pen,  compared  with  the  broad  tide  of  dim  emo 
tions,  ideas  and  associations  which  swell  around  me  from 
that  portion  of  my  existence!  I  low  little  have  I  told!  and 
of  that  little,  how  almost  nothing  is  even  tinctured  with 
any  quality  that  makes  it  exclusively  my  own!  Has  the 
reader  gone  wandering  hand  in  hand  with  me  through  the 
inner  passages  of  my  being  and  have  we  groped  together 
into  all  its  chambers  and  examined  their  treasures  or  their 
rubbish?  Not  so.  We  have  been  standing  on  the  green 
sward,  but  just  within  the  cavern's  mouth,  where  the  com 
mon  sunshine  is  free  to  penetrate  and  where  every  footstep 
is  therefore  free  to  come.  I  have  appealed  to  no  sentiment 
or  sensipilities  save  such  as  are  diffused  among  us  all.  So 
far  as  I  arn  a  man  of  really  individual  attributes,  I  veil  my 
face,  nor  am  I,  nor  have  I  ever  been,  one  of  those 
supremely  hosbitable  people  who  serve  up  their  own  hearts 
delicately  frieJ,  with  brain  sauce,  as  a  tidbit  for  their  be 
loved  public. 

Glancing  back  over  what  I  have  written,  it  seems  but 
the  scattered  reminiscences  of  a  single  summer,  In  fairy 
land  there  is  no  measurement  of  time,  and  in  a  spot  so 
sheltered  from  the  turmoil  of  life's  ocean  three  years  hasten 
away  with  a  noiseless  flight,  as  the  breezy  sunshine  chases 
the  cloud-shadows  across  the  depths  of  a  still  valley.  Now 
came  hints,  growing  more  and  more  distinct,  that  the 
owner  of  the  old  house  was  pining  for  his  native  air. 
Carpenters  next  appeared,  making  a  tremendous  racket 
among  the  out-buildings,  strewing  green  grass  with  pine- 
shavings  and  chips  of  chestnut  joists  and  vexing  the  whole 
antiquity  of  the  place  with  their  discordant  renovations. 
Soon,  moreover,  they  divested  our  abode  of  the  veil  of 
woodbine  which  had  crept  over  a  large  portion  of  its 
southern  face.  All  the  aged  mosses  were  cleared  unspar 
ingly  away  and  there  were  horrible  whispers  about  brushing 
up  the  external  walls  with  a  coat  of  paint — a  purpose  as 
little  to  my  taste  as  might  be  that  of  rouging  the  venerable 
cheeks  of  one's  grandmother.  But  the  hand  that  renovates 
is  always  more  sacrilegious  than  that  which  destroys.  In 
fine,  we  gathered  up  our  household  goods,  drank  a  farewell 
cup  of  tea  in  our  pleasant  little  breakfast-room — delicately 


26  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

fragrant  tea,  an  unpurchasable  luxury,  one  of  the  many 
angel- gifts  that  had  fallen  like  dew  upon  us — and  passed 
forth  between  the  tall  stone  gate-posts  as  uncertain  as  the 
wandering  Arabs  where  our  tent  might  next  be  pitched. 
Providence  took  me  by  the  hand  and — an  oddity  of  dis 
pensation  which,  I  trust,  there  is  no  irreverence  in  smiling 
at — has  led  me,  as  the  newspapers  announce  while  I  am 
writing,  from  the  Old  Manse  into  a  custom-house.  As  a 
story-teller  I  have  often  contrived  strange  vicissitudes  for 
my  imaginary  personages,  but  none  like  this. 

The  treasure  of  intellectual  gold  which  I  had  hoped  to 
find  in  our  secluded  dwelling  had  never  come  to  light.  No 
profound  treatise  of  ethics,  no  philosophic  history — no  novel, 
even,  that  could  stand  unsupported  on  its  edges.  All  that 
I  had  to  show,  as  a  man  of  letters,  were  these  few  tales  and 
essays  which  had  blossomed  out  like  flowers  in  the  calm 
summer  of  my  heart  and  mind.  Save  editing  (an  easy 
task)  the  journal  of  my  friend  of  many  years,  the  "  African 
Cruiser/'  I  had  done  nothing  else.  With  these  idle  weeds 
and  withering  blossoms  I  have  intermixed  some  that  were 
produced  long  ago — old,  faded  things,  reminding  me  of 
flowers  pressed  between  the  leaves  of  a  book — and  now  offer 
the  bouquet,  such  as  it  is,  to  any  whom  it  may  please. 
These  fitful  sketches  with  so  little  of  external  life  about 
them,  yet  claiming  no  prof undity  of  purpose,  so  reserved 
even  while  they  sometimes  seem  so  frank,  often  but  half  in 
earnest,  and  never,  when  most  so,  expressing  satisfactorily 
the  thoughts  which  they  profess  to  imagine — such  trifles, 
I  truly  feel,  afford  no  solid  basis  for  a  literary  reputation. 
Nevertheless  the  public — if  my  limited  number  of  readers, 
whom  I  venture  to  regard  rather  as  a  circle  of  friends, 
may  be  termed  a  public — will  receive  them  the  more  kindly 
as  the  last  offering,  the  last  collection,  of  this  nature  which 
it  is  my  purpose  ever  to  put  forth.  Unless  I  could  do  bet 
ter,  I  have  done  enough  in  this  kind.  For  myself,  the 
book  will  always  retain  one  charm,  as  reminding  me  of  the 
river  with  its  delightful  solitudes,  and  of  the  avenue,  the 
garden  arid  the  orchard,  and  especially  the  dear  Old  Manse, 
with  the  little  study  on  its  western  side  and  the  sunshine 
glimmering  through  the  willow  branches  while  I  wrote. 

Let  the  reader,  if  he  will  do  me  so  much  honor,  imagine 
himself  my  guest,  and  that,  having  seen  whatever  may  be 
worthj  of  notice  within  and  about  the  Old  Manse,  he  has 


THE  OLD  MANSE.  27 

finally  been  ushered  into  my  study.  There,  after  seating 
him  into  an  antique  elbow-chair — an  heirloom  of  the 
house — I  take  forth  a  roll  of  manuscript  and  entreat  his 
attention  to  the  following  tales — an  act  of  personal  inhos- 
pitality,  however,  which  I  never  was  guilty  of,  nor  never 
will  be,  even  to  my  worst  enemy. 


MOSSKS  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 


THE  BIRTHMARK. 


INT  THE  latter  part  of  the  last  century  there  lived  a  man 
of  science — an  eminent  proficient  in  every  branch  of  natural 
philosophy — who  not  long  before  our  story  opens  had  made 
experience  of  a  spiritual  affinity  more  attractive  than  any 
chemical  one.  He  had  left  his  laboratory  to  the  care  of  an 
assistant,  cleared  his  fine  countenance  from  the  furnace- 
smoke,  washed  the  stain  of  acids  from  his  fingers  and  per 
suaded  a  beautiful  woman  to  become  his  wife.  In  those 
days,  when  the  comparatively  recent  discovery  of  electric 
ity,  and  other  kindred  mysteries  of  nature,  seemed  to  open 
paths  into  the  region  of  miracle,  it  was  not  unusual  for  the 
love  of  science  to  rival  the  love  of  woman  in  its  depths  and 
and  absorbing  energy.  The  higher  intellect,  the  imagina 
tion,  the  spirit,  and  even  the  heart,  might  all  find  their 
congenial  ailment  in  pursuits  which,  as  some  of  their  ardent 
votaries  believed,  would  ascend  from  one  step  of  powerful 
intelligence  to  another,  until  the  philosopher  should  lay  his 
hand  on  the  secret  of  creative  force  and  perhaps  make  new 
worlds  for  himself.  We  know  not  whether  Aylmer  pos 
sessed  this  degree  of  faith  in  man's  ultimate  control  over 
nature.  He  had  devoted  himself,  however,  too  unreservedly 
to  scientific  studies  ever  to  be  weaned  from  them  by  any 
second  passion.  His  love  for  his  young  wife  might  prove 
the  stronger  of  the  two,  but  it  could  only  be  by  intertwin 
ing  itself  with  his  love  of  science  and  uniting  the  strength 
of  the  latter  to  its  own. 

Such  an  union  accordingly  took  plack,  and  was  attended 
with  truly  remarkable  consequences  and  a  deeply  impressive 
moral.  One  day,  very  soon  after  their  marriage,  Aylmer 
sat  gazing  at  his  wife  witli  a  trouble  in  his  countenance 
that  grew  stronger,  until  he  spoke. 


THE  BIRTHMARK.  39 

"  Georgiana,"  said  he,  "has  it  never  occurred  to  you 
that  the  mark  upon  your  cheek  might  be  removed?" 

"No,  indeed,"  said  she,  smiling;  but,  perceiving  the 
seriousness  of  his  manner,  she  blushed  deeply.  "  To  tell 
you  the  truth,  it  has  been  so  often  called  a  charm  that  I 
was  simple  enough  to  imagine  it  might  be  so." 

"Ah!  upon  another  face  perhaps  it  might,"  replied  her 
husband,  "  but  never  on  yours.  No,  dearest  Georgiana; 
you  came  so  nearly  perfect  from  the  hand  of  nature  that 
this  slightest  possible  defect — which  we  hesitate  whether 
to  term  a  defect  or  a  beauty — shocks  me  as  being  the 
visible  mark  of  earthly  imperfection." 

"Shocks  you,  my  husband!"  cried  Georgiana,  deeply 
hurt,  at  first  reddening  with  momentary  anger,  but  then 
bursting  into  tears.  "Then  why  did  you  take  me  from 
my  mother's  side?  You  cannot  love  what  shocks  you." 

To  explain  this  conversation  it  must  be  mentioned  that 
in  the  center  of  Georgiana's  left  cheek  there  was  a  singular 
mark  deeply  interwoven,  as  it  were,  with  the  texture  and 
substance  of  her  face.  In  the  usual  state  of  her  com 
plexion — a  healthy  though  delicate  bloom — the  mark  wore 
a  tint  of  deeper  crimson  which  imperfectly  defined  its  shape 
amid  the  surrounding  rosiness.  When  she  blushed,  it 
gradually  became  more  indistinct,  and  finally  vanished 
amid  the  triumphant  rush  of  blood  that  bathed  the  whole 
cheek  with  its  brilliant  glow.  But  if  any  shifting  emotion 
caused  her  to  turn  pale,  there  was  the  mark  again,  a  crim- 
som  stain  upon  the  snow,  in  what  Aylmer  sometimes 
deemed  an  almost  fearful  distinctness.  Its  shape  bore  not  a 
little  similarity  to  the  human  hand,  though  of  the  smallest 
pigmy  size.  Georgiana's  lovers  were  wont  to  say  that  some 
fairy  at  her  birth-hour  had  laid  her  tiny  hand  upon  the  in 
fant's  cheek,  and  left  this  impress  there  in  token  of  the 
magic  endowments  that  were  to  give  her  such  sway  over 
all  hearts.  Many  a  desperate  swain  would  have  risked  life 
for  the  privilege  of  pressing  his  lips  to  the  mysterious  hand. 
It  must  not  be  concealed,  however,  that  the  impression 
wrought  by  this  fairy  sign-manual  varied  exceedingly  ac 
cording  to  the  difference  of  temperament  in  the  beholders. 
Some  fastidious  persons — but  they  were  exclusively  of  her 
own  sex — affirmed  that  the  bloody  hand,  as  they  chose  to 
call  it,  quite  destroyed  the  effect  of  Georgiana's  beauty,  an  1 
rendered  her  countenance  even  hideous.  But  it  would  be 


30  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

as  reasonable  to  say  that  one  of  those  small  blue  stains 
which  sometimes  occur  in  the  purest  statuary  marble 
would  convert  the  Eve  of  Powers  to  a  monster.  Masculine 
observers,  if  the  birthmark  did  not  heighten  their  admira 
tion,  contented  themselves  with  wishing  it  away  that  the 
world  might  possess  one  living  specimen  of  ideal  loveliness 
without  the  semblance  of  a  flaw. 

After  his  marriage — for  he  thought  little  or  nothing  of 
the  matter  before — Aylmer  discovered  that  this  was  the 
case  with  himself.  Had  she  been  less  beautiful — if  envy's 
self  could  have  found  aught  else  to  sneer  at — he  might 
have  felt  his  affection  heightened  by  the  prettiness  of  this 
mimic  hand,  now  vaguely  portrayed,  now  lost,  now  steal 
ing  forth  again,  and  glimmering  to  and  fro  with  every 
pulse  of  emotion  that  throbbed  within  her  heart.  But, 
seeing  her  otherwise  so  perfect,  he  found  this  one  defect 
grow  more  and  more  intolerable  with  every  moment  of 
their  united  lives.  It  was  the  fatal  flaw  of  humanity  which 
nature  in  one  shape  or  another  stamps  ineffaceably  on  all 
her  productions,  either  to  imply  that  they  are  temporary 
and  finite  or  that  their  perfection  must  be  wrought  by  toil 
and  pain.  The  crimson  hand  expressed  the  ineludible 
grip  in  which  mortality  clutches  the  highest  and  purest  of 
of  earthly  mold,  degrading  them  into  kindred  with  the 
lowest,  and  even  with  the  very  brutes,  like  whom  their 
visible  frames  return  to  dust.  In  this  manner,  selecting 
it  as  the  symbol  of  his  wife's  liability  to  sin,  sorrow,  decay 
and  death,  Aylmer's  somber  imagination  was  not  long  in 
rendering  the  birth-mark  a  frightful  object,  causing  him 
more  trouble  and  horror  than  ever  Georgiana's  beauty, 
whether  of  soul  or  sense,  had  given  him  delight. 

At  all  the  seasons  which  should  have  been  their  happiest 
he  invariably,  and  without  intending  it — nay,  in  spite  of  a 
purpose  to  the  contrary — reverted  to  this  one  disastrous 
topic.  Trifling,  as  it  at  first  appeared,  it  so  connected  itself 
with  innumerable  trains  of  thought  and  modes  of  feeling 
that  it  became  the  central  point  of  all.  With  the  morning 
twilight  Aylmer  opened  his  eyes  upon  his  wife's  face  and 
recognized  the  symbol  of  imperfection  ;  and  when  they  sat 
together  at  the  evening  hearth,  his  eyes  wandered  stealthily 
to  her  cheek,  and  beheld,  flickering  with  the  blaze  of  the 
wood-fire,  the  spectral  hand  that  wrote  mortality  where  he 
would  fain  have  worshiped.  Georgiana  soon  learned  to 


THE  BIRTHMARK.  31 

shudder  at  his  gaze.  It  needed  but  a  glance,  with  the  pe 
culiar  expression  that  bis  face  often  wore,  to  change  the 
roses  of  her  cheek  into  a  death-like  paleness  amid  which  the 
crimson  hand  was  brought  strongly  out  like  a  bas-relief  of 
ruby  on  the  whitest  marble. 

Late  one  night,  when  the  lights  were  growing  dim,  so  as 
hardly  to  betray  the  stain  on  the  poor  wife's  cheek,  she  her 
self  for  the  first  time  voluntarily  took  up  the  subject. 

"Do  you  remember,,  my  dear  Aylmer,"  said  she,  with  a 
feeble  attempt  at  a  smile — "  have  you  any  recollection  of  a 
dream  last  night  about  this  odious  hand  ?" 

"None — none  whatever,"  replied  Aylmer,  starting;  but 
then  he  added  in  a  dry,  cold  tone,  affected  for  the  sake  of 
concealing  the  real  depth  of  his  emotion,  "  I  might  well 
dream  of  it,  for  before  1  fell  asleep  it  had  taken  a  pretty 
firm  hold  of  my  fancy." 

"And  you  did  dream  of  it,"  continued  Georgiana, 
hastily  ;  for  she  dreaded  lest  a  gush  of  tears  should  inter 
rupt  what  she  had  to  say — "  a  terrible  dream.  I  wonder 
that  you  can  forget  it.  It  is  possible  to  forget  this  one  ex 
pression  ?  '  It  is  in  her  heart  now  ;  we  must  have  it  out/ 
Reflect,  my  husband ;  for  by  all  means  I  would  have  you 
recall  that  dream." 

The  mind  is  in  a  sad  state  when  sleep  the  all-involving 
cannot  confine  her  specters  within  the  dim  region  of  her 
sway,  but  suffers  them  to  break  forth,  affrighting  tin's 
actual  life  with  secrets  that  perchance  belong  to  a  deeper 
one.  Aylmer  now  remembered  his  dream.  He  had  fancied 
himself  with  his  servant  Aminadab  attempting  an  opera 
tion  for  the  removal  of  the  birthmark.  But  the  deeper 
went  the  knife  the  deeper  sank  the  hand,  until  at  length 
its  tiny  grasp  appeared  to  have  caught  hold  of  Georgiana's 
heart,  whence,  however,  her  husband  was  inexorably  re 
solved  to  cut  or  wrench  it  away. 

When  the  dream  had  shaped  itself  perfectly  in  his  mem 
ory,  Aylmer  sat  in  his  wife's  presence  with  a  guilty  feeling. 
Truth  often  finds  its  way  to  the  mind  close-muffled  in  robes 
of  sleep,  and  then  speaks  with  uncompromising  directness 
of  matters  in  regard  to  which  we  practice  an  unconscious 
self-deception  during  our  waking  moments.  Until  now  he 
had  not  been  aware  of  the  tyrannizing  influence  acquired 
by  one  idea  ever  his  mind,  and  of  the  lengths  which  he 
might  find  in  his  heart  to  go  for  the  sake  of  giving  himself 
peace. 


32  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"Aylmer,"  resumed  Georgiana,  solemnly,  "I  know  not 
what  may  be  the  cost  to  both  of  us  to  rid  "me  of  his  fatal 
birthmark.  Perhaps  its  removal  may  cause  cureless  de 
formity.  Or,  it  may  be,  the  stain  goes  as  deep  as  life  it 
self.  Again,  do  we  know  that  there  is  a  possibility,  on 
any  terms,  of  unclasping  the  firm  grip  of  this  little  hand 
which  was  laid  upon  me  before  I  came  into  the  world  ?" 

"  Dearest  Georgiana,  I  have  spent  much  thought  upon 
the  subject,"  hastily  interrupted  Aylrner  ;  "  I  am  con 
vinced  of  the  perfect  practicability  of  its  removal." 

"  If  there  be  the  remotest  possibility  of  it,"  continued 
Georgiana,  "  let  the  attempt  be  made,  at  whatever  risk. 
Danger  is  nothing  to  me,  for  life,  while  this  hateful  mark 
makes  me  the  object  of  your  horror  and  disgust — life  is  a 
burden  which  I  would  fling  down  with  joy.  Either  re 
move  this  dreadful  hand  or  take  my  wretched  life.  You 
have  deep  science;  all  the  world  bears  witness  of  it.  You 
have  achieved  great  wonders;  cannot  you  remove  this  little, 
little  mark  which  I  cover  with  the  tips  of  two  small  fin 
gers?  Is  this  beyond  your  power,  for  the  sake  of  your 
own  peace  and  to  save  your  poor  wife  from  madness?"* 

" Noblest,  dearest,  tenderest  wife!"  cried  Aylmar,  rap 
turously.  *'  Doubt  not  my  power.  I  have  already  given 
this  matter  the  deepest  thought — thought  which  might 
almost  have  enlightened  me  to  create  a  being  less  perfect 
than  yourself.  Georgiana,  you  have  led  me  deeper  than 
ever  into  the  heart  of  science.  I  feel  myself  fully  compe 
tent  to  render  this  dear  cheek  as  faultless  as  its  fellow,  and 
then,  most  beloved,  what  will  be  my  triumph  when  I 
shall  have  corrected  what  nature  left  imperfect  in  her  fair 
est  work!  Even  Pygmalion,  when  his  sculptured  woman 
assumed  life,  felt  not  greater  ecstasy  than  mine  will  be." 

"It  is  resolved,  then,"  said  Georgiana,  faintly  smiling. 
"  And,  Aylrner,  spare  me  not  though  you  should  find  the 
birthmark  take  refuge  in  my  heart  at  last." 

Her  husband  tenderly  kissed  her  cheek — her  right  cheek, 
not  that  which  bore  the  impress  of  the  crimson  hand. 

The  next  day  Aylmer  apprised  his  wife  of  a  plan  that  he 
had  formed  whereby  he  might  have  opportunity  for  the  in 
tense  thought  and  constant  watchfulness  which  the  pro 
posed  operation  would  require,  while  Georgiana,  likewise, 
would  enjoy  the  perfect  repose  essential  to  its  success. 
They  were  to  seclude  themselves  in  the  extensive  apart- 


THE  B1RTHMA  UK.  33 

ments  occupied  by  Aylmer  as  a  laboratory,,  and  where  dur 
ing  his  toilsome  youth  he  had  made  discoveries  in  the 
elemental  powers  of  nature  that  had  roused  the  admiration 
of  all  the  learned  societies  in  Europe.  Seated  calmly  in 
this  laboratory  the  pale  philosopher  hud  investigated  the 
secrets  of  the  highest  cloud-region  and  of  the  prof  omul  est 
mines;  he  had  satisfied  himself  ot  the  causes  that  kindled 
and  kept  alive  the  fires  of  the  volcano,  and  had  explained 
the  mystery  of  fountains  and  how  it  is  that  they  gush 
forth,  some  so  bright  and  pure  and  others  with  such  rich 
medicinal  virtues,  from  the  dark  bosom  of  the  earth. 
Here,  too,  at  an  earlier  period,  he  had  studied  the  wonders 
of  the  human  frame  and  attempted  to  fathom  the  very 
process  by  which  nature  assimilates  all  her  precious  in 
fluences  from  earth  and  air  and  from  the  spiritual  world  to 
create  and  foster  man,  her  masterpiece.  The  latter  pur 
suit,  however,  Aylmer  had  long  laid  aside  in  unwilling 
recognition  of  the  truth  against  which  all  seekers  sooner 
or  later  stumble — that  our  great  creative  mother,  while  she 
amuses  us  with  apparently  working  in  the  broadest  sun 
shine,  is  yet  severely  careful  to  keep  her  own  secrets,  and 
in  spite  of  her  pretended  openness  shows  us  nothing  but 
results.  She  permits  us,  indeed,  to  mar,  but  seldom  to 
mend,  and,  like  a  jealous  patentee,  on  no  account  to  make. 
Now,  however,  Aylmer  resumed  these  half-forgotten  in 
vestigations — not,  of  course,  with  such  hopes  or  wishes  as 
first  suggested  them,  but  because  they  involved  much 
physiological  truth  and  lay  in  the  path  of  his  proposed 
scheme  for  the  treatment  of  Georgiana. 

As  he  led  her  over  the  threshold  of  the  laboratory  Geor 
giana  was  cold  and  tremulous.  Aylmer  looked  cheerfully 
into  her  face  with  intent  to  reassure  her,  but  was  so  startled 
with  the  intense  glow  of  the  birthmark  upon  the  whiteness 
of  her  cheek  that  he  could  not  restrain  a  strong  convulsive 
shudder.  His  wife  fainted. 

"Aminadab!  Aminadab!"  shouted  Aylmer,  stamping 
violently  on  the  floor. 

Forthwith  there  issued  from  an  inner  apartment  a  man 
of  low  stature  but  bulky  frame,  with  shaggy  hair  hanging 
about  his  visage,  which  was  grimed  with  the  vapors 
of  the  furnace.  This  personage  had  been  Aylmer's  under- 
worker  during  his  whole  scientific  career,  and  was  admir 
ably  fitted  for  that  office  b;T  his  great  mechanical  readiness 


34  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

and  the  skill  with  which,  while  incapable  of  comprehend 
ing  a  single  principle,  he  executed  all  the  practical  details 
of  his  masters  experiments.  With  his  vast  strength,  his 
shaggy  hair,  his  smoky  aspect  and  the  indescribable 
earthiness  that  incrusted  him,  he  seemed  to  represent 
man's  physical  nature,  while  Aylmer's  slender  figure  and 
pale  intellectual  face  were  no  less  apt  a  type  of  the  spiritual 
element. 

"  Throw  open  the  door  of  the  boudoir,  Aminadab,"  said 
Aylmer,  "  and  burn  a  pastille." 

"  Yes,  master,"  answered  Aminadab,  looking  intently  at 
the  lifeless  form  of  Georgiana;  and  then  he  muttered  to 
himself:  "  If  she  were  my  wife  I'd  never  part  with  that 
birthmark." 

When  Georgiana  recovered  consciousness  she  found  her 
self  breathing  an  atmosphere  of  penetrating  fragrance,  the 
gentle  potency  of  which  had  recalled  her  from  her  death 
like  faintness.  The  scene  around  her  looked  like  enchant 
ment.  Aylmer  had  converted  those  smoky,  dingy,  somber 
rooms  where  he  had  spent  his  brightest  years  in  recondite 
pursuits  into  a  series  of  beautiful  apartments  not  unfit  to 
be  the  secluded  abode  of  a  lovely  woman.  The  walls  were 
hung  with  gorgeous  curtains  which  imparted  the  combina 
tion  of  grandeur  and  grace  that  no  other  species  of  adorn 
ment  can  achieve,  and  as  they  fell  from  the  ceiling  to  the 
floor  their  rich  and  ponderous  folds,  concealing  all  angles 
and  straight  lines,  appeared  to  shut  in  the  scene  from  infi 
nite  space.  For  aught  Georgiana  knew,  it  might  be  a  pa 
vilion  among  the  clouds.  And  Aylmer,  excluding  the  sun 
shine,  which  would  have  interfered  with  his  chemical 
processes,  had  supplied  its  place  with  perfumed  lamps 
emitting  flames  of  various  hue,  but  all  uniting  in  a  soft, 
empurpled  radiance.  He  now  knelt  by  his  wife's  side, 
watching  her  earnestly,  but  without  alarm,  for  he  was  con 
fident  in  his  science,  and  felt  that  he  could  draw  a  magic 
circle  round  her  within  which  no  evil  might  intrude. 

"Where  am  I?  Ah!  I  remember,"  said  Georgiana, 
faintly;  and  she  placed  her  hand  over  her  cheek  to  hide 
the  terrible  mark  from  her  husband's  eyes. 

"  Fear  not,  dearest,"  exclaimed  he.  "  Do  not  shrink 
from  me.  Believe  me,  Georgiana,  1  even  rejoice  in  this 
single  imperfection,  since  it  will  be  such  a  rapture  to  re 
move  it," 


THE  BIRTHMARK.  35 

"  Oh,  spare  me!"  sadly  replied  his  wife.  "  Pray  do  not 
look  at  it  again.  I  never  can  forget  that  convulsive  shud 
der." 

In  order  to  sootli  Georgiana,  and,  as  it  were,  to  release 
her  mind  from  the  burden  of  actual  things,  Aylmer  now 
put  in  practice  some  of  the  light  and  playful  secrets  which 
science  had  taught  him  among  its  profounder  lore.  Airy 
figures,  absolutely  bodiless  ideas  and  forms  of  unsubstantial 
beauty  came  and  danced  before  her,  imprinting  their  mo 
mentary  footsteps  on  beams  of  light.  Though  she  had 
some  indistinct  idea  of  the  method  of  these  optical  phe 
nomena,  still  the  illusion  WHS  almost  perfect  enough  to  war 
rant  the  belief  that  her  husband  possessed  sway  over  the 
spiritual  world.  Then,  again,  when  she  felt  a  wish  to  look 
forth  from  her  seclusion,  immediately,  as  if  her  thoughts 
were  answered,  the  procession  of  external  existence  flitted 
across  a  screen.  The  scenery  and  the  figures  of  actual  life 
were  perfectly  represented,  but  witli  that  bewitching  yet 
indescribable  difference  which  always  makes  a  picture,  an 
image  or  a  shadow  so  much  more  attractive  than  the  orgi- 
nal.  When  wearied  of  this,  Aylmer  bade  her  cast  her  eyes 
upon  a  vessel  containing  a  quantity  of  earth.  She  did  so, 
with  little  interest  at  first,  but  was  soon  startled  to  perceive 
the  germ  of  a  plant  shooting  upward  from  the  soil.  Then 
came  the  slender  stalk;  the  leaves  gradually  unfolded 
themselves,  and  amid  them  was  a  perfect  and  lovely  flower. 

"  It  is  magical," cried  Georgiana;  "  I  dare  not  touch  it." 

"Nay,  pluck  it,"  answered  Aylmer — "pluck  it  and  in 
hale  its  brief  perfume  while  you  may.  The  flower  will 
wither  in  a  few  moments,  and  leave  nothing  save  its  brown 
seed-vessels;  but  thence  may  be  perpetuated  a  race  as 
ephemeral  as  itself." 

But  Georgiana  had  no  sooner  touched  the  flower  than 
the  whole  plant  suffered  a  blight,  its  leaves  turning  coal- 
black,  as  if  by  the  agency  of  tire. 

"  There  was  too  powerful  a  stimulus,"  said  Aylmer, 
thoughtfully. 

To  make  up  for  this  abortive  experiment,  he  proposed  to 
take  her  portrait  by  a  scientific  process  of  his  own  inven 
tion.  It  was  to  be  effected  by  rays  of  light  striking  upon 
a  polished  plate  of  metal.  Georgiana  assented,  but  on 
looking  at  the  result  was  affrighted  to  find  the  features  of 
the  portrait  blurred  and  indefineble,  while  the  minute  figure 


36  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

of  a  hand  appeared  where  the  cheek  should  have  been. 
Aylmer  snatched  the  metallic  plate  and  threw  it  into  a  jar 
of  corrosive  acid. 

Soon,  however,  he  forgot  these  mortifying  failures.  In. 
the  intervals  of  study  and  chemical  experiment  he  came  to 
her  flushed  and  exhausted,  but  seemed  invigorated  by  her 
presence,  and  spoke  in  glowing  language  of  the  resources 
of  his  art.  He  gave  a  history  of  the  long  dynasty  of  the 
alchemists,  who  spent  so  many  ages  in  quest  of  the  univer 
sal  solvent  by  which  the  golden  principle  might  be  elicited 
from  all  things  vile  and  base.  Aylmer  appeared  to  believe 
that  by  the  plainest  scientific  logic  it  was  altogether  within 
the  limits  of  possibility  to  discover  this  long-sought  me 
dium;  but,  he  added,  a  philosopher  who  should  go  deep 
enough  to  acquire  the  power  would  attain  too  lofty  a  wis 
dom  to  stoop  to  the  exercise  of  it.  Not  less  singular  were 
his  opinions  in  regard  to  the  elixir  vitae.  He  more  than 
intimated  that  it  was  at  his  option  to  concoct  a  liquid  that 
should  prolong  life  for  years — perhaps  interminably — but 
that  it  would  produce  a  discord  in  nature  wnich  all  the 
world,  and  chiefly  the  quaff er  of  the  immortal  nostrum, 
would  find  cause  to  curse. 

"  Aylmer,  are  you  in  earnest?"  asked  Georgiana,  looking 
at  him  with  amazement  and  fear.  "  It  is  terrible  to  pos 
sess  such  power  or  even  to  dream  of  possessing  it." 

"  Oh,  do  not  tremble,  my  love,"  said  her  husband;  "  I 
would  not  wrong  either  you  or  myself  by  working  such  in 
harmonious  effects  upon  our  lives.  But  I  would  have  you 
consider  how  trifling,  in  comparison,  is  the  skill  requisite 
to  remove  this  little  hand." 

At  the  mention  of  the  birthmark  Georgiana,  as  usual, 
shrank  as  if  a  red-hot  iron  had  touched  her  cheek. 

Again  Aylmer  applied  himself  to  his  labors.  She  could 
hear  his  voice  in  the  distant  furnace-room  giving  directions 
to  Aminadab,  whose  harsh,  uncouth,  misshapen  tones  were 
audible  in  response,  more  like  the  grunt  or  growl  of  a  brute 
than  human  speech.  After  hours  of  absence  Aylmer  re 
appeared  and  proposed  that  she  should  now  examine  his 
cabinet  of  chemical  products  and  natural  treasures  of  the 
earth.  Among  the  former  he  showed  her  a  small  vial  in 
which,  he  remarked,  was  contained  a  gentle  yet  most  pow 
erful  fragrance  capable  of  impregnating  all  the  breezes 
that  blow  across  u  kingdom.  They  were  of  inestimable 


THE  BIRTHMARK.  37 

value,  the  contents  of  that  little  vial;  and  as  he  said  so  he 
threw  some  of  the  perfume  into  the  air  and  filled  the  room 
with  piercing  and  invigorating  delighjb. 

"And  what  is  this,"  asked  Georgiana,  pointing  to  a 
small  crystal  globe  containing  a  gold-colored  liquid.  "  It 
is  so  beautiful  to  the  eye  that  I  could  imagine  it  the  elixir 
of  life." 

"In  one  sense  it  is,"  replied  Aylmer — "or,  rather,  the 
elixir  of  immortality.  It  is  the  most  precious  poison  that 
ever  was  concocted  in  the  world.  By  its  aid  I  could  appor 
tion  the  lifetime  of  any  mortal  at  whom  you  might  point 
your  finger.  The  strength  of  the  dose  would  determine 
whether  he  were  to  linger  out  years  or  drop  dead  in  the 
midst  of  a  breath.  No  king  on  his  guarded  throne  could 
keep  his  life,  if  I,  in  my  private  station,  should  deem  that 
the  welfare  of  millions  justified  me  in  depriving  him  of  it." 

"  Why  do  you  keep  such  a  terrible  drug?"  asked 
Georgiana,  in  horror. 

"  Do  not  mistrust  me,  dearest,"  said  her  husband  smil 
ing;  '•'  its  virtuous  potency  is  yet  greater  than  its  harmful 
one.  But  see!  here  is  a  powerful  cosmetic.  With  a  few 
drops  of  this  in  a  vase  of  water  freckles  may  be  washed 
away  as  easily  as  the  hands  are  cleansed.  A  stronger  in 
fusion  would  take  the  blood  out  of  the  cheek  and  leave  the 
rosiest  beauty  a  pale  ghost." 

"  Is  it  with  this  lotion  that  you  intend  to  bathe  my 
cheek?"  asked  Georgiana,  anxiously. 

"  Oh,  no!"  hastily  replied  her  husband;  "  this  is  merely 
superficial.  Your  case  demands  a  remedy  that  shall  go 
deeper." 

In  his  interviews  with  Georgiana,  Aylmer  generally  made 
minute  inquiries  as  to  her  sensations  and  whether  the  con 
finement  of  the  rooms  and  the  temperature  of  the  atmo 
sphere  agreed  with  her.  These  questions  had  such  a  partic 
ular  drift  that  Georgiana  began  to  conjecture  that  she  was 
already  subjected  to  certain  physical  influences  either 
breathed  in  with  the  fragrant  air  or  taken  with  her  food. 
She  fancied,  likewise — but  it  might  be  altogether  fancy- 
that  there  was  a  stirring  up  of  her  system,  a  strange,  indef 
inite  sensation  creeping  through  her  veins  and  tingling,  half 
painfully,  half  pleasurably  at  her  heart.  Still,  whenever 
she  dared  to  look  into  the  mirror,  there  she  beheld  herself 
pale  as  a  white  rose  and  with  the  crimson  birthmark  stamped 


38  MOUSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

upon  her  cheek.  Not  even  Aylmer  now  hated  it  so  much 
as  she. 

To  dispel  the  tedium  of  the  hours  which  her  husband 
found  it  necessary  to  devote  to  the  processes  of  combination 
and  analysis,  Georgiana  turned  over  the  volumes  of  his  sci 
entific  library.  In  many  dark  old  tomes  she  met  with 
chapters  full  of  romance  and  poetry.  They  were  the  words 
of  the  philosophers  of  the  middle  ages,  such  as  Albertus 
Magnus,  Cornelius  Agrippa,  Paracelsus  and  the  famous 
friar  who  created  the  prophetic  Brazen  Head.  All  these 
antique  naturalists  stood  in  advance  of  their  centuries,  yet 
were  imbued  with  some  of  their  credulity,  and  therefore 
were  believed,  and  perhaps  imagined  themselves,  to  have 
acquired  from  the  investigation  of  nature  a  power  above 
nature,  and  from  physics  a  sway  over  the  spiritual  world. 
Hardly  less  curious  and  imaginative  were  the  early  volumes 
of  the  "  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society,"  in  which  the 
members,  knowing  little  of  the  limits  of  natural  possibility, 
were  continually  recording  wonders  or  proposing  methods 
whereby  wonders  might  be  wrought. 

But  to  Georgiana  the  most  engrossing  volume  was  a  large 
folio  from  her  husband's  own  hand  in  which  he  had  re 
corded  every  experiment  of  his  scientific  career  with  its 
original  aim,  the  methods  adopted  for  its  development  and 
its  final  success  or  failure,  with  the  circumstances  to  which 
either  event  was  attributed.  The  book,  in  truth,  was  both 
the  history  and  emblem  of  his  ardent,  ambitious,  imagina 
tive,  yet  practical  and  laborious  life.  He  handled  physical 
details  as  if  there  were  nothing  beyond  them,  yet  spiritual 
ized  them  all,  and  redeemed  himself  from  materialism  by 
his  strong  and  eager  aspiration  toward  the  infinite.  In  his 
grasp  the  veriest  clod  of  earth  assumed  a  soul.  Georgiana, 
as  she  read,  reverenced  Aylmer  and  loved  him  more  pro 
foundly  than  ever,  but  with  a  less  entire  dependence  on  his 
judgment  than  heretofore.  Much  as  he  had  accomplished, 
she  could  not  but  observe  that  his  most  splendid  successes 
were  almost  invariably  failures,  if  compared  with  the  idea 
at  which  he  aimed.  His  brightnest  diamonds  were  the  merest 
pebbles,  and  felt  to  be  so  by  himself,  in  comparison  with  the 
inestimable  gems  which  lay  hidden  beyond  his  reach.  The 
volume  rich  with  achievements  that  had  won  renown  for  its 
author  was  yet  as  melancholy  a  record  as  ever  mortal  hand 
had  penned.  It  was  the  sad  confession  and  continual  ex- 


THE  BIRTHMARK.  39 

emplification  of  the  shortcomings  of  the  composite  man, 
the  spirit  burdened  with  clay  and  working  in  matter,  and 
of  the  despair  that  assails  the  higher  nature  at  finding  itself 
so  miserably  thwarted  by  the  earthly  part.  Perhaps  every 
man  of  genius,  in  whatever  sphere,  might  recognize  the 
image  of  his  own  experience  in  Aylmer's  journal. 

So  deeply  did  these  reflections  affect  Georgiana  that  she 
laid  her  face  upon  the  open  volume  and  burst  into  tears. 
In  this  situation  she  was  found  by  her  husband. 

"  It  is  dangerous  to  read  in  a  sorcerers  books,"  said  he, 
with  a  smile,  though  his  countence  was  uneasy  and  dis 
pleased.  "  Georgiana,  there  are  p;iges  in  that  volume 
which  I  can  scarcely  glance  over  and  keep  my  senses. 
Take  heed  lest  it  prove  as  detrimental  to  you." 

"  It  has  made  me  worship  you  more  then  ever,"  said 
she. 

"Ah!  wait  for  this  one  success,"  rejoined  he,  "then 
worship  me  if  you  will.  I  shall  deem  myself  hardly  un 
worthy  of  it.  But  come!  1  have  sought  you  for  the 
luxury  of  your  voice.  Sing  to  me,  dearest." 

So  she  poured  out  the  liquid  music  of  her  voice  to 
quench  the  thirst  of  his  spirit.  He  then  took  his  leave 
with  a  boyish  exuberance  of  gayety,  assuring  her  that  her 
seclusion  would  endure  but  a  little  longer  and  that  the  re 
sult  was  already  certain.  Scarcely  had  he  departed,  when 
Georgiana  felt  irresistibly  impelled  to  follow  him.  She 
had  forgotten  to  inform  Aylmer  of  a  symptom  which  for 
two  or  three  hours  past  had  begun  to  excite  her  attention. 
It  was  a  sensation  in  the  fatal  birthmark — not  painful, 
but  which  induced  a  restlessness  throughout  her  system. 
Hastening  after  her  husband,  she  intruded  for  the  first 
time  into  the  laboratory. 

The  first  thing  that  struck  her  eye  was  the  furnace,  that 
hot  and  feverish  worker,  with  the  intense  glow  of  its  fire, 
which  by  the  quantities  of  soot  clustered  above  it  seemed 
to  have  been  burning  for  ages.  There  was  a  distilling  ap 
paratus  in  full  operation.  Around  the  room  were  retorts, 
tubes,  cylinders,  crucibles  and  other  apparatus  of  chemical 
research.  An  electrical  machine  stood  ready  for  imme 
diate  use.  The  atmosphere  felt  oppressively  close  and  was 
tainted  witli  gaseous  odors  which  had  been  tormented 
forth  by  the  processes  of  science.  The  severe  and  homely 
simplicity  of  the  apartment,  with  its  naked  walls  and 


40  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

brick  pavement,  looked  strange,  accustomed  as  Georgiana 
had  become  to  the  fantastic  elegance  of  her  boudoir.  But 
what  chiefly — indeed,  almost  solely — drew  her  attention 
was  the  aspect  of  Aylmer  himself. 

He  was  pale  as  death,  anxious  and  absorbed  and  hung 
over  the  furnace  as  if  it  depended  upon  his  utmost  watch 
fulness  whether  the  liquid  which  it  was  distilling  should  be 
the  draught  of  immortal  happiness  or  misery.  How  differ 
ent  from  the  sanguine  and  joyous  mien  that  he  had  as 
sumed  for  Georgiana's  encouragement. 

"Carefully  now,  Aminadab!  Carefully,  thou  human 
machine!  Carefully,  thou  man  of  clay!"  muttered 
Aylmer,  more  to  himself  than  his  assistant.  "  Now,  if 
there  be  a  thought  too  much  or  too  little,  it  is  all  over." 

"  Ho  !  ho!"  mumbled  Aminadab.  "Look,  master, 
look!" 

Aylmer  raised  his  eyes  hastily  and  at  first  reddened, 
then  grew  paler  than  ever,  on  beholding  Georgiana.  He 
rushed  toward  her  and  seized  her  arm  with  a  grip  that  left 
the  print  of  his  fingers  upon  it. 

•"  Why  do  you  come  hither  ?  Have  you  no  trust  in  your 
husband  ?"  cried  he,  impetuously.  "Would  you  throw 
the  blight  of  that  fatal  birthmark  over  my  labors  ?  It  is 
not  well  done.  Go,  prying  woman,  go  ! " 

"Nay,  Aylmer, w  said  Georgiana,  with  the  firmness  of 
which  she  possessed  no  stinted  endowment,  "it  is  not  you 
that  have  a  right  to  complain.  You  mistrust  your  wife. 
You  have  concealed  the  anxiety  with  which  you  watch  the 
development  of  this  experiment.  Think  not  so  unworth 
ily  of  me,  my  husband.  Tell  me  all  the  risk  we  run  and 
fear  not  that  I  shall  shrink,  for  my  share  in  it  is  far  less 
than  your  own  !  " 

"No,  no,  Georgiana!"  said  Aylmer,  impatiently;  "it 
must  not  be." 

"  I  submit,"  replied  she,  calmly.  "And,  Aylmer,  I 
shall  quaff  whatever  draught  you  bring  me,  but  it  will  be 
on  the  same  principle  that  would  induce  me  to  take  a  dose 
of  poison  if  offered  by  your  hand." 

"My  noble  wife! "said  Aylmer,  deeply  moved;  "I 
knew  not  the  height  and  depth  of  your  nature  until  now. 
Nothing  shall  be  concealed.  Know,  then,  that  this  crimson 
hand,  superficial  as  it  seems,  has  clutched  its  grasp  into 
your  being  with  a  strength  of  which  I  had  no  previous 


TEE  SIR  THMA  UK.  41 

conception.  I  have  already  administered  agents  powerful 
enough  to  do  aught  except  to  change  your  entire  physical 
system.  Only  one  thing  remains  to  be  tried  ;  if  that  fails 
us,  we  are  ruined  ! " 

"  Why  did  you  hesitate  to  tell  me  this  ?"  asked  she. 

"  Because,  Georgiana,"  said  Aylmer,  in  a  low  voice 
t(  there  is  danger." 

"  '  Danger  ! '  There  is  but  one  danger — that  this  horri 
ble  stigma  shall  be  left  upon  my  cheek,"  cried  Georgians. 
"  Remove  it,  remove  it,  whatever  be  the  cost,  or  we  shall 
both  go  mad." 

"  Heaven  knows  your  words  are  too  true/'  said  Aylmer, 
sadly.  "  And  now,  dearest,  return  to  your  boudoir.  In  a 
little  while  all  will  be  tested." 

He  conducted  her  back,  and  took  leave  of  her  with  a 
solemn  tenderness  which  spoke  far  more  than  his  words 
how  much  was  now  at  stake. 

After  his  departure  (reorgiana  became  wrapped  in  mus 
ings.  She  considered  the  character  of  Aylmer,  and  did  it 
compieter  justice  than  at  any  previous  moment.  Her 
heart  exulted  while  it  trembled  at  his  honorable  love,  so 
pure  and  lofty  that  it  would  accept  nothing  less  than  per 
fection,  nor  miserably  make  itself  contented  with  an  earth- 
lier  nature  than  he  had  dreamed  of.  She  felt  how  much 
more  precious  was  such  a  sentiment  than  that  meaner 
kind  which  would  have  borne  with  the  imperfection  for 
her  sake,  and  have  been  guilty  of  treason  to  holy  love  by 
degrading  its  perfect  idea  to  the  level  of  the  actual.  And 
with  her  whole  spirit  she  prayed  that  for  a  single  moment 
she  might  satisfy  his  highest  and  deepest  conception. 
Longer  than  one  moment,  she  well  knew,  it  could  not  be, 
for  his  spirit  was  ever  on  the  march,  ever  ascending,  and 
each  instant  required  something  that  was  beyond  the  scope 
of  the  instant  before. 

The  sound  of  her  husband's  footsteps  aroused  her.  He 
bore  a  crystal  goblet  containing  a  liquor  colorless  as  water, 
but  bright  enough  to  be  the  draught  of  immortality.  Ayl 
mer  was  pale,  but  it  seemed  rather  the  consequence  of  a 
highly  wrought  state  of  mind  and  tension  of  spirit  than  of 
fear  or  doubt. 

"  The  concoction  of  the  draught  has  been  perfect,"  said 
he,  in  answer  to  Georgiana's  look.  "  Unless  all  my  science 
have  deceived  me,  it  caiinot  fail." 


42  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE!. 

"Save  on  your  account,  my  dearest  Aylmer,"  observed 
his  wife.  "  I  might  wish  to  put  off  this  birthmark  of 
mortality  by  relinquishing  mortality  itself,  in  preference  to 
any  other  mode.  Life  is  but  a  sad  possession  to  those  who 
have  attained  precisely  the  degree  of  moral  advancement  at 
which  I  stand.  Were  I  weaker  and  blinder,  it  might  be 
happiness  ;  were  I  stronger,  it  might  be  endured  hopefully; 
but,  being  what  I  find  myself,  methinks  I  am  of  all  mortals 
the  most  tit  to  die." 

"  You  are  fit  for  heaven  without  tasting  death,"  replied 
her  husband.  "But  why  do  we  speak  of  dying  ?  The 
draught  cannot  fail.  Behold  its  effect  upon  this  plant." 

On  the  window-seat  there  stood  a  geranium  diseased 
with  yellow  blotches,  which  had  overspread  all  its  leaves. 
Aylmer  poured  a  small  quantity  of  the  liquid  upon  the  soil 
in  which  it  grew.  In  a  little  time,  when  the  roots  of  the 
plant  had  taken  up  the  moisture,  the  unsightly  blotches 
began  to  be  extinguished  in  a  living  verdure. 

"  There  needed  no  proof,"  said  Georgiana,  quietly. 
"  Give  me  the  goblet;  I  joyfully  stake  all  upon  your 
word." 

"Drink,  then,  thou  lofty  creature!"  exclaimed  Aylmer, 
with  fervid  admiration.  "  There  is  no  taint  of  imperfec 
tion  on  thy  spirit.  Thy  sensible  frame,  too,  shall  soon  be 
all  perfect." 

She  quaffed  the  liquid  and  returned  the  goblet  to  his 
hand. 

"  It  is  grateful,"  said  she,  with  a  placid  smile.  "  Me 
thinks  it  is  like  water  from  a  heavenly  fountain,  for  it 
contains  I  know  not  what  of  unobtrusive  fragrance  and 
deliciousness.  It  allays  a  feverish  thirst  that  had  parched 
me  for  many  days.  Now,  dearest,  let  me  sleep.  My 
earthly  senses  are  closing  over  my  spirit  like  the  leaves 
around  the  heart  of  a  rose  at  sunset. 

She  spoke  the  last  words  with  a  gentle  reluctance  as  if 
it  required  almost  more  energy  than  she  could  command 
to  pronounce  the  faint  and  lingering  syllables.  Scarcely 
had  they  loitered  through  her  lips  ere  she  was  lost  in 
slumber.  Aylmer  sat  by  her  side  watching  her  aspect  with 
the  emotions  proper  to  a  man  the  whole  value  of  whose  ex 
istence  was  involved  in  the  process  now  to  be  tested. 
Mingled  with  this  mood,  however,  was  the  philosophic 
investigation  characteristic  of  the  man  of  science.  Not 


THE  BIRTHMARK.  43 

the  minutest  symptom  escaped  him.  A  heightened  flush 
of  the  cheeks,  a  slight  irregularity  of  breath,  a  quiver  of 
the  eyelids  a  hardly  perceptible  tremor  through  the  frame 
— such  were  the  details  which  as  the  moments  passed  he 
wrote  down  in  his  folio  volume.  Intense  thought  had  set 
its  stamp  upon  every  previous  page  of  that  volume,  but 
the  thoughts  of  years  were  all  concentrated  upon  the  last. 

While  thus  employed  he  failed  not  to  gaze  often  at  the 
fatal  hand,  and  not"  without  a  shudder.  Yet  once,  by  a 
strange  and  unaccountable  impulse,  he  pressed  it  with  his 
lips.  His  spirit  recoiled,  however,  in  the  very  act,  and 
Georgiana  out  of  the  midst  of  her  deep  sleep  moved  un 
easily  and  murmured  as  if  in  remonstrance.  Again  Ayl- 
mer  resumed  his  watch.  Nor  was  it  without  avail.  The 
crimson  hand  which  at  first  had  been  strongly  visible  upon 
the  marble  paleness  of  Georgiana's  cheek  now  grew  more 
faintly  outlined.  She  remained  not  less  pule  than  ever, 
but  the  birthmark  with  every  breath  that  came  and  went 
lost  somewhat  of  its  former  distinctness.  Its  presence 
had  been  awful ;  its  departure  was  more  awful  still. 
Watch  the  stain  of  the  rainbow  fading  out  of  the  sky, 
and  you  will  know  how  that  mysterious  symbol  passed 
away. 

"  By  heaven,  it  is  well-nigh  gone!"  said  Aylrner  to  him 
self,  in  almost  irrepressible  ecstasy.  "  I  can  scarcely  trace 
it  now.  Success!  Success!  And  now  it  is  like  the  faint 
est  rose  color;  the  slightest  flush  of  blood  across  her  cheek 
would  overcome  it.  But  she  is  so  pale!" 

lie  drew  aside  the  window  curtain  and  suffered  the  light 
of  natural  day  to  fall  into  the  room  and  rest  upon  her 
cheek.  At  the  same  time  he  heard  a  gross,  hoarse  chuckle 
which  he  had  long  known  as  his  servant  Aminadab's  ex 
pression  of  delight. 

"Ah,  clod!  "Ah,  earthly  mass!"  cried  Aylmer,  laughing 
in  a  sort  of  frenzy.  "  You  have  served  me  well!  Matter 
and  spirit — earth  and  heaven — have  both  done  their  part 
in  this.  Laugh,  thing  of  the  senses!  You  have  earned 
the  right  to  laugh." 

These  exclamations  broke  Georgiana's  sleep.  She  slowly 
unclosed  her  eyes  and  gazed  into  the  mirror  which  her 
husband  had  arranged  for  that  purpose.  A  faint  smile 
flitted  over  her  lips  when  she  recognized  how  barely  per 
ceptible  was  now  that  crimson  hand  which  had  once  blazed 


44  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

forth,  with  such  disastrous  brilliancy  as  to  scare  away  all 
their  happiness.  But  then  her  e^es  sought  Aylmer's  face 
with  a  trouble  and  anxiety  that  he  could  by  no  means  ac 
count  for. 

"  My  poor  Aylmer!"  murmured  she. 

"Poor?  Nay — richest,  happiest,  most  favored!"  ex 
claimed  he.  "My  peerless  bride,  it  is  successful.  You 
are  perfect!" 

"  My  poor  Aylmer!"  she  repeated,  with  a  more  than 
human  tenderness.  "You  have  aimed  loftily;  you  have 
done  nobly.  Do  not  repent  that  with  so  high  and  pure  a 
feeling  you  have  rejected  the  best  the  earth  could  offer. 
Aylmer,  dearest  Aylmer,  I  am  dying." 

Alas,  it  was  too  true!  The  fatal  hand  had  grappled  with 
the  mystery  of  life  and  was  the  bond  by  which  an  angelic 
spirit  kept  itself  in  union  with  a  mortal  frame.  As  the 
last  crimson  tint  of  the  birthmark — that  sole  token  of 
human  imperfection — faded  from  her  cheek,  the  parting 
breath  of  the  now  perfect  woman  passed  into  the  atmos 
phere  and  her  soul,  lingering  a  moment  near  her  husband, 
took  its  heavenward  flight.  Then  a  hoarse,  chuckling 
laugh  was  heard  again.  Thus  ever  does  the  gross  fatality 
of  earth  exult  in  its  invariable  triumph  over  the  immortal 
essence  which  in  this  dim  sphere  of  half  development  de 
mands  the  completeness  of  a  higher  state.  Yet,  had 
Aylmer  reached  a  profounder  wisdom,  he  need  not  thus 
have  flung  away  the  happiness  which  would  have  woven 
his  mortal  life  of  the  selfsame  texture  with  the  celestial. 
The  momentary  circumstance  was  too  strong  for  him;  he 
failed  to  lopk  beyond  the  shadowy  scope  of  time,  and,  liv 
ing  once  for  all  in  eternity,  to  find  the  perfect  future  in 
the  present. 


A  SELECT  PARTY.  45 


A  SELECT  PARTY. 

L-- 

A  MAN  of  fancy  made  an  entertainment  at  one  of  his 
castles  in  the  air  and  invited  a  select  number  of  distin 
guished  personages  to  favor  him  with  their  presence.  The 
mansion,  though  less  splendid  than  many  that  have  been 
situated  in  the  same  region,  was  nevertheless  of  a  magnifi 
cence  such  as  is  seldom  witnessed  by  those  acquainted  only 
with  terrestrial  architecture.  Its  strong  foundations  and 
massive  walls  were  quarried  out  of  a  ledge  of  heavy  and 
somber  clouds  which  had  hung  brooding  over  the  earth, 
apparently  as  dense  and  ponderous  as  its  own  granite, 
throughout  a  whole  autumnal  day.  Perceiving  that  the 
general  effect  was  gloomy — so  that  the  airy  castle  looked 
like  a  feudal  fortress  or  a  monastery  of  the  middle  ages  or 
a  state-prison  of  our  own  times  rather  than  the  home  of 
pleasure  and  repose  which  he  intended  it  to  be — the  owner, 
regardless  of  expense,  resolved  to  gild  the  exterior  from  top 
to  bottom.  Fortunately,  there  was  just  then  a  flood  of 
evening  sunshine  in  the  air.  This,  being  gathered  up  and 
poured  abundantly  upon  the  roof  and  walls,  imbued  them 
with  a  kind  of  solemn  cheerfulness,  while  the  cupolas  and 
pinnacles  were  made  to  glitter  with  the  purest  gold  and  all 
the  hundred  windows  gleamed  with  a  glad  light,  as  if  the 
edifice  itself  were  rejoicing  in  its  heart.  And  now,  if  the 
people  of  the  lower  world  chanced  to  be  looking  upward 
out  of  the  turmoil  of  their  petty  perplexities,  they  probably 
mistook  the  castle  in  the  air  for  a  heap  of  sunset-clouds  to 
which  the  magic  of  light  and  shade  had  imparted  the  aspect 
of  a  fantastically  constructed  mansion.  To  such  beholders 
it  was  unreal  because  they  lacked  the  imaginative  faith. 
Had  they  been  worthy  to  pass  within  its  portal  they  would 
have  recognized  the  truth  that  the  dominions  which  the 
spirit  conquers  for  itself  among  unrealities  become  a  thou- 


46  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

sand  times  more  real  than  the  earth  whereon  they  stamp 
their  feet,  saying:  "This  is  solid  and  substantial!  This 
may  be  called  a  fact!" 

At  the  appointed  hour  the  host  stood  in  his  great  saloon 
to  receive  the  company.  It  was  a  vast  and  noble  room, 
the  vaulted  ceiling  of  which  was  supported  by  double  rows 
of  gigantic  pillars  that  had  been  hewn  entire  out  of  masses 
of  variegated  clouds.  So  brilliantly  were  they  polished, 
and  so  exquisitely  wrought  by  the  sculptor's  skill,  as  to  re 
semble  the  finest  specimens  of  emerald,  porphyry,  opal 
and  chrysolite,  thus  producing  a  delicate  richness  of  effect 
which  their  immense  size  rendered  not  incompatible  with 
grandeur.  To  each  of  these  pillars  a  meteor  was  suspended. 
Thousands  of  these  ethereal  lusters  are  continually  wander 
ing  about  the  firmament,  burning  out  to  waste,  yet  capable 
of  imparting  a  useful  radiance  to  any  person  who  has  the 
art  of  converting  them  to  domestic  purposes.  As  managed 
in  the  saloon,  they  are  far  more  economical  than  ordinary 
lamplight.  Such,  however,  was  the  intensity  of  their 
blaze  that  it  had  been  found  expedient  to  cover  each  meteor 
with  a  globe  of  evening  mist,  thereby  muffling  the  too 
potent  glow  and  soothing  it  into  a  mild  and  comfortable 
splendor.  It  was  like  the  brilliancy  of  a  powerful  yet 
chastened  imagination — a  light  which  seemed  to  hide 
whatever  was  unworthy  to  be  noticed  and  give  effect  to 
every  beautiful  and  noble  attribute.  The  guests,  there 
fore,  as  they  advanced  up  the  center  of  the  saloon,  ap 
peared  to  better  advantage  than  ever  before  in  their  lives. 

The  first  that  entered,  with  old-fashioned  punctuality, 
was  a  venerable  figure  in  the  costume  of  by-gone  days,  with 
his  white  hair  flowing  down  over  his  shoulders  and  a  rev 
erend  beard  upon  his  breast.  He  leaned  upon  a  staff,  the 
tremulous  stroke  of  which,  as  he  set  it  carefully  upon  the 
floor,  re-echoed  through  the  saloon  at  every  footstep. 
Recognizing  at  once  this  celebrated  personage,  whom  it 
had  cost  him  a  vast  deal  of  trouble  and  research  to  discover, 
the  host  advanced  nearly  three-fourths  of  the  distance  down 
between  the  pillars  to  meet  and  welcome  him. 

"Venerable  sir/'  said  the  Man  of  Fancy,  bending  to  the 
floor,  "  the  honor  of  this  visit  would  never  be  forgotten 
were  my  term  of  existence  to  be  as  happily  prolonged  as 
your  own." 

The  old  gentleman  received  the  compliment  with  gra- 


A  SELECT  PARTY.  47 

cious  condescension;  he  then  thrust  up  his  spectacles  over 
his  forehead  and  appeared  to  take  a  critical  survey  of  the 
saloon. 

"Never,  within  my  recollection/'  observed  he,  "have  I 
entered  a  more  spacious  and  noble  hall.  But  are  you  sure 
that  it  is  built  of  solid  materials,  and  that  the  structure  will 
be  permanent?" 

"  Oh,  never  fear,  my  venerable  friend,"  replied  the  host. 
"In  reference  to  a  lifetime  like  your  own,  it  is  true,  my 
castle  may  well  be  called  a  temporary  edifice,  but  it  will 
endure  long  enough  to  answer  all  the  purposes  for  which 
it  was  erected." 

But  we  forget  that  the  reader  has  not  yet  been  made  ac 
quainted  with  the  guest.  It  was  no  other  than  that  uni 
versally  accredited  character  so  constantly  referred  to  in  all 
seasons  of  intense  cold  or  heat — he  that  remembers  the  hot 
Sunday  and  the  cold  Friday,  the  witness  of  a  past  age 
whose  negative  reminiscences  find  their  way  into  every 
newspaper,  yet  whose  antiquated  and  dusky  abode  is  so 
overshadowed  by  accumulated  years  and  crowded  back  by 
modern  edifices  that  none  but  the  Man  of  Fancy  could 
have  discovered  it.  It  was,  in  short,  that  twin-brother  of 
time  and  great  grand  sire  of  mankind  and  hand-and-glove 
associate  of  all  forgotten  men  and  things,  the  Oldest  In 
habitant.  The  host  would  willingly  have  drawn  him  into 
conversation,  but  succeeded  only  in  eliciting  a  few  remarks- 
as  to  the  oppressive  atmosphere  of  this  present  summer 
evening,  compared  with  one  which  the  guest  had  experi 
enced  about  four-score  years  ago.  The  old  gentleman,  in 
fact,  was  a  good  deal  overcome  by  his  journey  among  the 
clouds,  which  to  a  frame  so  earth-incrusted  by  long  con 
tinuance  in  a  lower  region  was  unavoidably  more  fatiguing 
than  to  younger  spirits.  He  Avas  therefore  conducted  to 
an  easy-chair  well  cushioned  and  stuffed  with  vaporous 
softness,  and  left  to  take  a  little  repose. 

The  Man  of  Fancy  now  discerned  another  guest,  who 
stood  so  quietly  in  the  shadow  of  one  of  the  pillars  that  he 
might  easily  have  been  overlooked. 

"  My  dear  sir,"  exclaimed  the  host,  grasping  him  warmly 
by  the  hand,  "  allow  me  to  greet  you  as  the  hero  of  the 
evening.  Pray  do  not  take  it  as  an  empty  compliment;  for 
if  there  were  not  another  guest  in  my  castle,  it  would  be 
entirely  pervaded  with  your  presence! " 


48  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"I  thank  you,"  answered  the  unpretending  stranger, 
"  but,  though  you  happened  to  overlook  me,  I  have  not 
just  arrived.  I  came  very  early,  and,  with  your  permission, 
shall  remain  after  the  rest  of  the  company  have  retired." 

And  who  does  the  reader  imagine  was  this  unobtrusive 
guest?  It  was  the  famous  performer  of  acknowledged  im 
possibilities — a  character  of  superhuman  capacity  and  vir 
tue,  and,  if  his  enemies  are  to  be  credited,  of  no  leas  re 
markable  weaknesses  and  defects.  With  a  generosity  of 
which  he  alone  sets  us  the  example,  we  will  glance  merely 
at  his  nobler  attributes.  He  it  is,  then,  who  prefers  the 
interests  of  others  to  his  own  and  a  humble  station  to  an 
exalted  one.  (Careless  of  fashion,  custom,  the  opinions  of 
men  and  the  influence  of  the  press,  he  assimilates  his  life 
to  the  standard  of  ideal  rectitude,  and  thus  proves  himself 
the  one  independent  citizen  of  our  free  country.  V  In  point 
of  ability  many  people  declare  him  to  be  the  only  mathe 
matician  capable  of  squaring  the  circle,  the  only  mechanic 
acquainted  with  the  principle  of  perpetual  motion,  the 
only  scientific  philosopher  who  can  compel  water  to  run 
up  hill,  the  only  writer  of  the  age  whose  genius  is  equal  to 
the  production  of  an  epic  poem,  and,  finally — so  various 
are  his  accomplishments — the  only  professor  of  gymnastics 
who  has  succeeded  in  jumping  down  his  own  throat.  With 
all  these  talents,  however,  he  is  so  far  from  being  con 
sidered  a  member  of  good  society  that  it  is  the  severest 
censure  of  any  fashionable  assemblage  to  affirm  that  this 
remarkable  individual  was  present.  Public  orators,  lectures 
and  theatrical  performers  particularly  eschew  his  company. 
For  especial  reasons,  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  disclose  his 
name,  and  shall  mention  only  one  other  trait — a  most 
singular  phenomenon  in  natural  philosophy — that  when  he 
happens  to  cast  his  eyes  upon  a  looking-glass  he  beholds 
nobody  reflected  there. 

Several  other  guests  now  made  their  appearance,  and 
among  them,  chattering  with  immense  volubility,  a  brisk 
little  gentleman  of  universal  vogue  in  private  society,  and 
not  unknown  in  the  public  journals  under  the  title  of  Mon 
sieur  On-Dit.  The  name  would  seem  to  indicate  a  French 
man,  but,  whatever  be  his  country,  he  is  throughly  versed 
in  all  the  languages  of  the  day,  and  can  express  himself 
quite  as  much  to  the  purpose  in  English  as  in  any  other 
tongue.  No  sooner  were  the  ceremonies  of  salution  over 


A  SELECT  PARTY.  49 

than  this  talkative  little  person  put  his  month  to  the  host's 
ear  and  whispered  three  secrets  of  state,  an  important 
piece  of  commercial  intelligence  and  a  rich  item  of  fashion 
able  scandal.  He  then  assured  the  Man  of  Fancy  that  he 
would  not  fail  to  circulate  in  the  society  of  the  lower  world 
a  minute  description  of  this  magnificent  castle  in  the  air, 
and  of  the  festivities  at  which  he  had  the  honor  to  be  a 
guest.  So  saying,  Monsieur  On-I)it  made  his  bow  and  hur 
ried  from  one  to  another  of  the  company,  with  all  of  whom 
he  seemed  to  be  acquainted,  and  to  possess  some  topic  of 
interest  or  amusement  for  every  individual.  Coming  at 
last  to  the  Oldest  Inhabitant,  who  was  slumbering  com 
fortably  in  the  easy-chair,  he  applied  his  mouth  to  that 
venerable  ear. 

"  What  do  you  say?"  cried  the  old  gentleman,  starting 
from  his  nap  and  putting  up  his  hand,  to  serve  the  pur 
pose  of  an  ear-trumpet. 

Monsieur  On-I)it  bent  forward  again  and  repeated  his 
communication. 

"  Never  within  my  memory/'  exclaimed  the  Oldest 
Inhabitant,  lifting  his  hands  in  astonishment,  "  has  so  re 
markable  an  incident  been  heard  of." 

Now  came  in  the  Clerk  of  the  Weather,  who  had  been 
invited  out  of  deference  to  his  official  station,  although  the 
host  was  well  aware  that  his  conversation  was  likely  to 
contribute  but  little  to  the  general  enjoyment.  He  soon, 
indeed,  got  into  a  corner  with  his  acquaintance  of  long- 
ago,  the  Oldest  Inhabitant,  and  began  to  compare  notes 
with  him  in  reference  to  the  great  storms,  p;ales  of  wind 
and  other  atmospherical  facts  that  had  occurred  during  a 
century  past.  It  rejoiced  the  Man  of  Fancy  that  his  ven 
erable  and  much-respected  guest  had  met  with  so  con 
genial  an  associate.  Entreating  them  both  to  make  them 
selves  perfectly  at  home,  he  now  turned  to  receive  the 
Wandering  Jew.  This  personage,  however,  had  latterly 
grown  so  common  by  mingling  in  all  sorts  of  society  and 
appearing  at  the  beck  of  every  entertainer  that  he  could 
hardly  be  deemed  a  proper  guest  in  a  very  exclusive  circle. 
Besides,  being  covered  with  dust  from  his  continual  wan 
derings  along  the  highways  of  the  world,  he  really  looked 
out  of  place  in  a  dress-party;  so  that  the  host  felt  relieved 
of  an  incommodity  when  the  restless  individual  in  ques 
tion,  after  a  brief  stay,  took  his  departure  on  a  ramble 
toward  Oregon, 


50  MOSSfiS  FROM  ON  OLD  MANSE. 

The  portal  was  now  thronged  by  a  crowd  of  shadowy 
people  with  whom  the  Man  of  Fancy  had  been  acquainted 
in  his  visionary  youth.  He  had  invited  them  hither  for 
the  sake  of  observing  how  they  would  compare,  whether 
advantageously  or  otherwise,  with  the  real  characters  to 
whom  his  maturer  life  had  introduced  him.  They  were 
beings  of  crude  imagination  such  as  glide  before  a  young 
man's  eye  and  pretend  to  be  actual  inhabitants  of  the  earth; 
the  wise  and  witty  with  whom  he  would  hereafter  hold 
intercourse,  the  generous  and  heroic  friends  whose  devo 
tion  would  be  requited  with  his  own,  the  beautiful  dream- 
woman  who  would  become  the  helpmate  of  his  human 
toils  and  sorrows,  and  at  once  the  source  and  partaker  of 
his  happiness.  Alas!  it  is  not  good  for  the  full-grown  man 
to  look  too  closely  at  these  old  acquaintances,  but  rather 
to  reverence  them  at  a  distance  through  the  medium  of 
years  that  have  gathered  duskily  between.  There  was 
something  laughably  untrue  in  their  pompous  stride  and 
exaggerated  sentiment;  they  were  neither  human  nor 
tolerable  likenesses  of  humanity,  but  fantastic  maskers, 
rendering  heroism  and  nature  alike  ridiculous  by  the 
grave  absurdity  of  their  pretensions  to  such  attributes. 
And,  as  for  the  peerless  dream-lady,  behold!  there  ad 
vanced  up  the  saloon,  with  a  movement  like  a  jointed-doll, 
a  sort  of  wax  figure  of  an  angel,  a  creature  as  cold  as 
moonshine,  an  artifice  in  petticoats,  with  an  intellect  of 
pretty  phrases  and  only  the  semblance  of  a  heart,  yet  in 
all  these  particulars  the  true  type  of  a  young  man's  imagi 
nary  mistress.  Hardly  could  the  host's  punctilious  court 
esy  restrain  a  smile  as  he  paid  his  respects  to  this  un 
reality  and  met  the  sentimental  glance  with  which  the 
dream  sought  to  remind  him  of  their  former  love- 
passages. 

"  No,  no,  fair  lady!"  murmured  he,  between  sighing 
and  smiling;  "  my  taste  is  changed.  1  have  learned  to 
love  what  nature  makes  better  than  my  own  creations  in 
the  guise  of  womanhood." 

"  Ah,  false  one!"  shrieked  the  Dream-Lady,  pretending 
to  faint,  but  dissolving  into  thin  air,  out  of  which  came 
the  deplorable  murmur  of  her  voice.  "  Your  inconstancy 
has  annihilated  me  " 

"  So  be  it,"  said  the  cruel  Man  of  Fancy  to  himself; 
(( and  a  good  riddance,  too!" 


A  SELECT  PARTY.  51 

Together  with  these  shadows  and  from  the  same  region, 
there  had  come  an  uninvited,  multitude  of  shapes  which  at 
any  time  during  his  life  had  tormented  the  Man  of  Fancy 
in  his  moods  of  morbid  melancholy  or  had  haunted  him 
in  the  delirium  of  fever.  The  walls  of  his  castle  in  the 
air  were  not  dense  enough  to  keep  them  out,  nor  would 
the  strongest  of  earthly  architecture  have  availed  to  their 
exclusion.  Here  were  those  forms  of  dim  terror  which 
had  beset  him  at  the  entrance  of  life,  waging  warfare 
with  his  hopes.  Here  were  strange  uglinesses  of  earlier 
date  such  as  haunt  children  in  the  night-time.  He  was 
particularly  startled  by  the  vision  of  a  deformed  old  black 
woman  whom  he  imagined  as  lurking  in  the  garret  of  his 
native  home,  and  who,  when  he  was  an  infant,  had  once 
come  to  his  bedside  and  grinned  at  him  in  the  crisis  of  a 
scarlet  fever.  This  same  black  shadow,  with  others 
almost  as  hideous,  now  glided  among  the  pillars  of  the  mag 
nificent  saloon,  grinning  recognition,  until  the  man  shud 
dered  anew  at  the  forgotten  terrors  of  his  childhood.  It 
amused  him,  however,  to  observe  the  black  woman,  with 
the  mischievous  caprice  peculiar  to  such  beings,  steal  up 
to  the  chair  of  the  Oldest  Inhabitant  and  peep  into  his 
half-dreamy  mind. 

"  Never,  within  my  memory,"  muttered  that  venerable 
personage,  aghast,  "  did  I  see  such  a  face!  " 

Almost  immediately  after  the  unrealities  just  described, 
arrived  a  number  of  guests,  whom  incredulous  readers  may 
be  inclined  to  rank  equally  among  creatures  of  imagina 
tion.  The  most  noteworthy  were  an  Incorruptible  Pa 
triot,  a  Scholar  without  pedantry,  a  Priest  without  worldly 
ambition  and  a  Beautiful  Woman  without  pride  or  coquetry; 
a  Married  Pair  whose  life  had  never  been  disturbed  by  in 
congruity  of  feeling;  a  Reformer,  untrammeled  by  his 
theory,  and  a  Poet  who  felt  no  jealousy  toward  other 
votaries  of  the  lyre.  In  truth,  however,  the  host  was  not 
one  of  the  cynics  who  consider  these  patterns  of  excellence 
without  the  fatal  flaw,  such  rarities  in  the  world,  and  he 
had  invited  them  to  his  select  party  chieily  out  of  humble 
deference  to  the  judgment  of  society  which  pronounces 
them  almost  impossible  to  be  met  with. 

"  In  my  younger  days," observed  the  Oldest  Inhabitant, 
"such  characters  might  be  seen  at  thu  corners  of  every 
street." 


52  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 


Be  that  as  it  might,  these  specimens  of  perfection 
proved  to  be  not  half  so  entertaining  companions  as  peo 
ple  with  the  ordinary  allowance  of  faults.  \^ 

But  now  appeared  a  stranger  whom  the  host  had  no 
sooner  recognized  than,,  with  an  abundance  of  courtesy  un- 
lavished  on  any  other,  he  hastened  down  the  whole  length 
of  the  saloon  in  order  to  pay  him  emphatic  honor.  Yet  he 
was  a  young  man  in  poor  attire,  with  no  insignia  of  rank 
or  acknowledged  eminence,  nor  anything  to  distinguish 
him  among  the  crowd  except  a  high  white  forehead,  be 
neath  which  a  pair  of  deep-set  eyes  were  glowing  with 
warm  light.  It  was  such  a  light  as  never  illuminates  the 
earth  save  when  a  great  heart  burns  as  the  household  fire  of 
a  grand  intellect.  And  who  was  he?  Who  but  the  Master- 
Genius  for  whom  our  country  is  looking  anxiously  into  the 
mist  of  time  as  destined  to  fulfill  the  great  mission  of 
creating  an  American  literature,  hewing  it,  as  it  were,  out  of 
the  unwrought  granite  of  our  intellectual  quarries.  From 
him,  whether  molded  in  the  form  of  an  epic  poem  or  as 
suming  a  guise  altogether  new,  as  the  spirit  itself  may  de 
termine,  we  are  to  receive  our  first  great  original  work, 
which  shall  do  all  that  remains  to  be  achieved  for  our  glory 
among  the  nations.  How  this  child  of  a  mighty  destiny 
had  been  discovered  by  the  Man  of  Fancy,  it  is  of  little 
consequence  to  mention.  Suffice  it  that  he  dwells  as  yet 
unhouored  among  men,  unrecognized  by  those  who  have 
known  him  from  his  cradle;  the  noble  countenance  which 
should  be  distinguished  by  a  halo  diffused  around  it  passes 
daily  amid  the  throng  of  people  toiling  and  troubling 
themselves  about  the  trifles  of  a  moment,  and  none  pay 
reverence  to  the  worker  of  immortality.  Nor  does  it 
matter  much  to  him,  in  his  triumph  over  all  the  ages, 
though  a  generation  or  two  of  his  own  times  shall  do  them 
selves  the  wrong  to  disregard  him. 

By  this  time  Monsieur  On-Dit  had  caught  up  the 
stranger's  name  and  destiny,  and  was  busily  whispering 
the  intelligence  among  the  other  guests. 

"Pshaw!"  said  one;  "  there  can  never  be  an  American 
genius." 

"Pish!"  cried  another;  "we  have  already  as  good  poets 
as  any  in  the  world.  For  my  part,  I  desire  to  eee  no 
better." 

And  the  Oldest  Inhabitant;  when  it  was  proposed  to  in- 


A  SELECT  PARTY.  53 

troduce  him  to  the  Master-Genius,  begged  to  be  excused, 
observing  that  a  man  who  had  been  honored  with  the  ac 
quaintance  of  Dwight,  Freneau  and  Joel  Barlow  might  be 
allowed  a  little  austerity  of  taste. 

The  saloon  was  now  fast  filling  up  by  the  arrival  of 
other  remarkable  characters, 'among  whom  were  noticed 
Davy  Jones,  the  distinguished  nautical  personage,  and  a 
rude,  carelessly  dressed,  harum-scarum  sort  of  elderly 
fellow  known  by  nickname  of  Old  Harry.  The  latter, 
however,  after  being  shown  to  a  dressing-room,  reappeared 
with  his  gray  hair  nicely  combed,  his  clothes  brushed,  a 
clean  dicky  on  his  neck,  and  altogether  so  changed  in 
aspect  as  to  merit  the  more  respectful  appellation  of  Ven 
erable  Henry.  John  Doe  and  Richard  Roe  came  arm  in 
arm,  accompanied  by  a  Man  of  Straw,  a  Fictitious  In 
dorse  r  and  several  persons  who  had  no  existence  except 
as  voters  in  closely-contested  elections.  The  celebrated 
Seatsfield,  who  now  entered,  was  at  first  supposed  to  belong 
to  the  same  brotherhood,  until  he  made  it  apparent  that 
he  was  a  real  man  of  ilesh  and  blood  and  had  his  earthly 
domicile  in  (rermany.  Among  the  latest  comers,  as  might 
reasonably  be  expected,  arrived  a  guest  from  the  far 
future. 

"Do  you  know  him?  Do  you  know  him?"  whispered 
Monsieur  On  Dit,  who  seemed  to  be  acquainted  with  every 
body,  "'lie  is  the  representative  of  Posterity — the  man  of 
an  age  to  come." 

"And  how  came  he  here?"  asked  a  figure  who  was  evi 
dently  the  prototype  of  the  fashion-plate  in  a  magazine, 
and  might  be  taken  to  represent  the  vanities  of  the  passing 
moment.  "  The  fellow  infringes  upon  our  rights  by  com 
ing  before  his  time." 

"  But  you  forget  where  we  are,"  answered  the  Man  of 
Fancy,  who  overheard  the  remark.  "  The  low  earth,  it 
is  true,  will  be  forbibben  ground  to  him  for  many  long 
years  hence,  but  a  j^astle  in  the  air  is  a  sort  of  no-man's 
land  where  Posterity  may  make  acquaintance  with  us  on 
equal  terms." 

No  sooner  was  his  identity  known  than  a  throng  of 
guests  gathered  about  Posterity,  all  expressing  the  most 
generous  interest  in  his  welfare,  and  many  boasting  of  the 
sacrifices  which  they  had  made,  or  were  willing  to  make, 
in  his  beluilf.  Some,  with  as  much  secrecy  as  possible, 


5G  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

through  the  room;  so  that  the  guests,  astonished  at  one  an 
other,  reciprocally  saw  their  heads  made  glorious  by  the 
seven  primary  hues;  or  if  they  chose — as  who  would  not? 
— they  could  grasp  a  rainbow  in  the  air  and  convert  it  to 
their  own  apparel  and  adornment.  But  the  morning  light 
and  scattered  rainbows  were  only  a  type  and  symbol  of  the 
real  wonders  of  the  apartment.  By  an  influence  akin  to 
magic,  yet  perfectly  natural,  whatever  means  and  oppor 
tunities  of  joy  are  neglected  in  the  lower  world  had  been 
carefully  gathered  up  and  deposited  in  the  Saloon  of  Morn 
ing  Sunshine.  As  may  well  be  conceived,  therefore,  there 
was  material  enough  to  supply  not  merely  a  joyous  evening, 
but  also  a  happy  lifetime,  to  more  than  as  many  people  as 
that  spacious  apartment  could  contain.  The  company 
seemed  to  renew  their  youth,  while  that  pattern  and  pro 
verbial  standard  of  innocence,  the  Child  Unborn,  frolicked 
to  and  fro  among  them,  communicating  his  own  unwrinkled 
gayety  to  all  who  had  the  good  fortune  to  witness  his  gam 
bols. 

"  My  honored  friends,"  said  the  Man  of  Fancy,  after  they 
had  enjoyed  themselves  awhile,  "  I  am  now  to  request 
your  presence  in  the  banqueting-hall,  where  a  slight  colla 
tion  is  awaiting  you." 

"  Ah!  well  said!"  ejaculated  a  cadaverous  figure  who  had 
been  invited  for  no  other  reason  than  that  he  was  pretty 
constantly  in  the  habit  of  dining  with  Duke  Humphrey. 
"1  was  beginning  to  wonder  whether  a  castle  in  the  air 
were  provided  with  a  kitchen." 

It  was  curious,  in  truth,  to  see  how  instantaneously  the 
guests  were  diverted  from  the  high  moral  enjoyments 
which  they  had  been  tasting  with  so  much  apparent  zest  by 
a  suggestion  of  the  more  solid  as  well  as  liquid  delights  of 
the  festive  board.  They  thronged  eagerly  in  the  rear  of 
the  host,  who  now  ushered  them  into  a  lofty  and  extensive 
hall  from  end  to  end  of  which  was  arranged  a  table  glitter 
ing  all  over  with  innumerable  dishes  and  drinking- vessels 
of  gold.  It  is  an  uncertain  point  whether  these  rich  arti 
cles  of  plate  were  made  for  the  occasion  out  of  molten  sun 
beams  or  recovered  from  the  wrecks  of  Spanish  galleons 
that  had  lain  for  ages  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  Tlie  upper 
end  of  the  table  was  overshadowed  by  a  canopy  beneath 
which  was  placed  a  chair  of  elaborate  magnificence,  which 
the  host  himself  declined  to  occupy,  and  besought  his 


A  SELECT  PARTY.    .  57 

guests  to  assign  it  to  the  worthiest  among  them.  As  a 
suitable  homage  to  his  incalculable  antiquity  and  eminent 
distinction,  the  post  of  honor  was  at,  first  tendered  to  the 
Oldest  Inhabitant.  lie,  however,  eschewed  it,  and  requested 
the  favor  of  a  bowl  of  gruel  at  a  side-table  where  he  could 
refresh  himself  with  a  quiet  nap.  There  was  some  little 
hesitation  as  to  the  next  candidate,  until  Posterity  took  the 
Master-Genius  of  our  country  by  the  hand  and  led  him  to 
the  chair  of  state  beneath  the  princely  canopy.  When 
once  they  beheld  him  in  his  true  place,  the  company  ac 
knowledged  the  justice  of  the  selection  by  a  long  thunder- 
roll  of  vehement  applause. 

Then  was  served  up  a  banquet,  combining,  if  not  all  the 
delicacies  of  the  season,  yet  all  the  rarities  which  careful 
purveyors  had  met  with  in  the  flesh,  fish  and  vegetable 
markets  of  the  land  of  Xowhere.  The  bill  of  fare  being 
unfortunately  lost,  we  can  only  mention  a  phoenix  roasted 
in  its  own  flames,  cold  potted  birds  of  paradise,  ice-creams 
from  the  milky  way  and  whipsyllabubs  and  flummery 
from  the  paradise  of  fools,  whereof  there  was  a  very  great 
consumption.  As  for  drinkables,  the  temperance  people 
contented  themselves  with  water,  as  usual,  but  it  was  the 
water  of  the  fountain  of  youth,  the  ladies  sipped  nepen 
the,  the  love-lorn,  the  careworn  and  the  sorrow-stricken 
were  supplied  with  brimming  goblets  of  lethe,  and  it  was 
shrewdly  conjectured  that  a  certain  golden  vase  from  which 
only  the  more  distinguished  guests  were  invited  to  partake 
contained  nectar  that  had  been  mellowing  ever  since 
the  days  of  classical  mythology.  The  cloth  being  re 
moved,  the  company,  as  usual,  grew  eloquent  over  their 
liquor,  and  delivered  themselves  of  a  succession  of  brill 
iant  speeches,  the  task  of  reporting  which  we  resign  to 
the  more  adequate  ability  of  Counselor  Gill,  whose  indi 
spensable  co-operation  the  Man  of  Fancy  had  taken  the 
precaution  to  secure. 

When  the  festivity  of  the  banquet  was  at  its  most  ethe 
real  point,  the  Clerk  of  the  Weather  was  observed  to  steal 
from  the  table  and  thrust  his  head  between  the  purple  and 
golden  curtains  of  one  of  the  windows. 

"My  fellow-guests,"  he  remarked,  aloud,  after  carefully 
noting  the  signs  of  the  night,  "  I  advise  such  of  you  as  live 
at  a  distance  to  be  going  as  soon  as  possible,  for  a 
thunderstorm  is  certainly  at  hand." 


58  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"  Mercy  on  me!"  cried  Mother  Gary,  who  had  left  her 
brood  of  chickens  and  come  hither  in  gossamer  drapery 
with  pink  silk  stockings;  "  how  shall  I  ever  get  home?" 

All  now  was  confusion  and  hasty  departure,  with  but 
little  superfluous  leave-taking.  The  Oldest  Inhabitant, 
however,  true  to  the  rule  of  those  long-past  days  in  which 
his  courtesy  had  been  studied,  paused  on  the  threshold  of 
the  meteor-lighted  hall  to  express  his  vast  satisfaction  at 
the  entertainment. 

' '  Never,  within  my  memory,"  observed  the  gracious  old 
gentleman,  "  has  it  been  my  good-fortune  to  spend  a  pleas- 
anter  evening,  or  in  more  select  society." 

The  wind  here  took  his  breath  away,  whirled  his  three- 
cornered  hat  into  infinite  space,  and  drowned  what  further 
compliments  it  had  been  his  purpose  to  bestow.  Many  of 
the  company  had  bespoken  will-o'-the- wisps  to  convey 
them  home,  and  the  host,  in  his  general  beneficence,  had 
engaged  the  Man  in  the  Moon,  with  an  immense  horn 
lantern,  to  be  the  guide  of  such  desolate  spinsters  as  could 
do  no  better  for  themselves.  But  a  blast  of  the  rising 
tempest  blew  out  all  their  lights  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye.  How  in  the  darkness  that  ensued  the  guests  con 
trived  to  get  back  to  earth,  or  whether  the  greater  part  of 
them  contrived  to  get  back  at  all,  or  are  still  wandering 
among  clouds,  mists  and  puffs  of  tempestuous  wind, 
bruised  by  the  beams  and  rafters  of  the  overthrown  castle 
in  the  air  and  deluded  by  all  sorts  of  unrealities,  are  points' 
that  concern  themselves  much  more  than  the  writer  or  the 
public.  People  should  think  of  these  matters  before  they 
trust  themselves  on  a  pleasure  party  into  the  realm  of  No 
where. 


YOUNG  GOODMAN  BROWN.  59 


YOUNG  GOODMAN  BROWN. 


YOUNG  Goodman  Brown  came  forth  at  sunset  into  the 
street  of  Salem  village,  put  his  head  hack,  after  cross 
ing  the  threshold,  to  exchange  a  parting  kiss  with  his 
young  wife.  And  Faith,  as  the  wife  was  aptly  named, 
thrust  her  own  pretty  head  into  the  street,  letting  the 
wind  play  with  the  pink  ribbons  of  her  cap,  while  she 
called  to  Goodman  Brown. 

"  Dearest  heart,"  whispered  she,  softly  and  rather  sadly, 
when  her  lips  were  close  to  his  ear,  "  prythee,  put  oif  your 
journey  until  sunrise  and  sleep  in  your  own  bed  to-night. 
A  lone  woman  is  troubled  with  such  dreams  and  such 
thoughts  that-  she's  afeard  of  herself  sometimes.  Pray 
tarry  with  me  this  night,  dear  husband,  of  all  nights  in 
the  year." 

**'  My  love  and  my  Faith,"  replied  young  Goodman  Brown, 
"  of  all  nights  in  the  year,  this  one  must  I  tarry  away 
from  thee.  My  journey,  as  thou  callest  it,  forth  and  back 
again,  must  needs  be  done  'twixt  now  and  sunrise.  What, 
my  sweet,  pretty  wife!  Doest  thou  doubt  me  already,  and 
we  hut  three  months  married  ?" 

"  Then  God  bless  you,  said  Faith  with  the  pink  ribbons, 
"and  may  you  find  all  well  when  you  come  back!" 

"Amen!"  cried  Goodman  Brown.  "  Say  thy  prayers, 
dear  Faith,  and  go  to  bed  at  dusk,  and  no  harm  will  come 
to  thee." 

So  they  parted,  and  the  young  man  pursued  his  way 
until,  being  about  to  turn  the  corner  by  the  meeting-house, 
he  looked  back  and  saw  the  head  of  Faith  still  peeping 
after  him  with  a  melancholy  air,  in  spite  of  her  pink 
ribbons. 

"  Poor  little  Faith!"  thought  he,  for  his  heart  smote  him. 
"What  a  wretch  am  1,  to  leave  her  on  such  an  errand! 


60  MOSSKS  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

She  talks  of  dreams,  too.  Me  thought,  as  she  spoke,  there 
was  trouble  in  her  face,  as  if  a  dream  had  warned  her  what 
work  is  to  be  done  to-night.  But  no,  no!  'twould  kill  her 
to  think  it.  Well,  she's  a  blessed  angel  on  earth,  and  after 
this  one  night  I'll  cling  to  her  skirts  and  follow  her  to 
heaven/' 

With  this  excellent  resolve  for  the  future,  Goodman 
Brown  felt  himself  justified  in  making  more  haste  on  his 
present  evil  purpose.  He  had  then  taken  a  dreary  road 
darkened  by  all  the  gloomiest  trees  of  the  forest,  which 
barely  stood  aside  to  let  the  narrow  path  creep  through, 
and  closed  immediately  behind.  It  was  all  as  lonely  as 
could  be;  and  there  is  this  peculiarity  in  such  a  solitude — 
that  the  traveler  knows  not  who  may  be  concealed  by  the 
innumerable  trunks  and  the  thick  boughs  overhead,  so 
that  with  lonely  footsteps  he  may  yet  be  passing  through 
an  unseen  multitude. 

"  There  may  be  a  devilish  Indian  behind  every  tree," 
said  Goodman  Brown  to  himself;  and  he  glanced  fearfully 
behind  him  as  he  added:  "  What  if  the  devil  himself  should 
be  at  my  very  elbow?" 

His  head  being  turned  back,  he  passed  a  crook  of  the 
road,  and,  looking  forward  again,  beheld  the  figure  of  a 
man  in  grave  and  decent  attire  seated  at  the  foot  of  an  old 
tree.  He  arose  at  Goodman's  approach,  and  walked  on 
ward  side  by  side  with  him. 

"  You  are  late,  Goodman  Brown,"  said  he.  "  The  clock 
of  the  Old  South  was  striking  as  I  cume  through  Boston, 
and  that  is  full  fifteen  minutes  agone." 

"Faith  kept  me  back  awhile,"  replied  the  young  man, 
with  a  tremor  in  his  voice  caused  by  the  sudden  appearance 
of  his  companion,  though  not  wholly  unexpected. 

It  was  now  deep  dusk  in  the  forest,  and  deepest  in  that 
part  of  it  where  these  two  were  journeying.  As  nearly  as 
could  be  discerned,  the  second  traveler  was  about  50  years 
old,  apparently  in  the  same  rank  of  life  as  Goodman  Brown, 
and  bearing  a  considerable  resemblance  to  him,  though  per 
haps  more  in  expression  than  features.  Still  they  might 
have  been  taken  for  father  and  son.  And  yet,  though  the 
elder  person  was  MS  simply  clad  as  the  younger,  and  as  sim 
ple  in  manner  too,  he  had  an  indescribable  air  of  one  who 
knew  the  world,  and  would  have  felt  abashed  at  the  gov 
ernor's  dinner-table  or  in  King  William's  court  were  it 


YOUNG  GOODMAN  BROWN.  61 

possible  that  his  affairs  should  call  him  thither.  But  the 
only  thing  about  him  that  could  be  fixed  upon  as  remark 
able  was  his  staff,  which  bore  the  likeness  of  a  great  black 
snake  so  curiously  wrought  that  it  might  almost  be  seen  to 
twist  and  wriggle  itsself  like  a  living  serpent.  This,  of 
course,  must  have  been  an  ocular  deception,  assisted  by  the 
uncertain  light. 

"Come,  Goodman  Brown!"  cried  his  fellow-traveler; 
"  this  a  dull  pace  for  the  beginning  of  a  journey.  Take 
my  staff,  if  you  are  so  soon  weary." 

"  Friend,"  said  the  other,  exchanging  his  slow  pace  for 
a  full  stop,  "  having  kept  covenant  by  meeting  thee  here,  it 
is  my  purpose  now  to  return  from  whence  I  came.  I  have 
scruples  touching  the  matter  thou  wotst  of." 

"  Sayest  thou  so?"  replied  he  of  the  serpent,  smiling 
apart.  "  Let  us  walk  on,  nevertheless,  reasoning  as  we  go, 
and  if  I  convince  thee  not,  thou  shtilt  turn  back.  We  are 
but  a  little  way  in  the  forest  yet/' 

"  Too  far— too  far!"  exclaimed  the  good  man,  uncon 
sciously  resuming  his  walk.  "  My  father  never  went  into 
the  woods  on  such  an  errand,  nor  his  father  before  him. 
We  have  been  a  race  of  honest  men  and  good  Christians 
since  the  days  of  the  martyrs,  and  shall  I  be  the  first  of  the 
name  of  Brown  that  ever  took  this  path  and  kept — 

"  '  Such  company/  thou  wouldst  say,"  observed  the  elder 
person,  interrupting  his  pause.  "  Well  said,  Goodman 
Brown!  I  have  been  as  well  acquainted  with  your  family 
as  with  ever  a  one  among  the  puritans,  and  that's  no  trifle 
to  say.  I  helped  your  grandfather  the  constable  when  he 
lashed  the  quaker  woman  so  smartly  through  the  streets  of 
Salem,  and  it  was  I  who  brought  your  father  a  pitch-pine 
knot  kindled  at  my  own  hearth  to  set  fire  to  an  Indian  vil 
lage  in  King  Philip's  war.  They  were  my  good  friends, 
both,  and  many  a  pleasant  walk  have  we  had  along  this 
path,  and  returned  merrily  after  midnight.  I  would  fain 
be  friends  with  you  for  their  sake." 

"  If  it  be  as  thou  sayest,"  replied  Goodman  Brown,  "  I 
marvel  they  never  spoke  of  these  matters.  Or,  verily,  I 
marvel  not,  seeing  that  the  least  rumor  of  the  sort  would 
have  driven  them  from  England.  We  are  a  people  of 
prayer  and  good  works  to  boot,  and  abide  no  such 
wickedness." 

"  Wickedness  or  not,"  said  the  traveler  with  the  twisted 


62  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

staff,  "  I  have  a  very  general  acquaintance  here  in  New 
England.  The  deacons  of  many  a  church  have  drunk  the 
communion  wine  with  me,  the  selectmen  of  divers  towns 
make  me  their  chairman,  and  a  majority  of  the  great  and 
general  court  are  firm  supporters  of  my  interest.  The 
governor  and  I,  too But  these  are  state  secrets." 

"  Can  this  be  so?"  cried  Goodman  Brown,  with  a  stare 
of  amazement  at  his  undisturbed  companion.  "  Howbeit, 
I  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  governor  and  council;  they 
have  their  own  ways,  and  are  no  rule  for  a  simple  husband 
man  like  me.  But  were  I  to  go  on  with  thee,  how  could  I 
meet  the  eye  of  that  good  old  man  our  minister  at  Salem 
village?  Oh,  his  voice  would  make  me  tremble  both  Sab 
bath-day  and  lecture-day." 

Thus  far  the  elder  traveler  had  listened  with  due  gravity, 
but  now  burst  into  a  fit  of  irrepressible  mirth,  shaking  him 
self  so  violently  that  his  snake-like  staff  actually  seemed  to 
wriggle  in  smypathy. 

"  Ha!  ha!  ha!"  shouted  he,  again  and  again;  then,  com 
posing  himself:  "  Well,  go  on,  Goodman  Brown,  go  on; 
but  prythee  don't  kill  me  with  laughing!" 

"  Well,  then,  to  end  the  matter  at  once,"  said  Goodman 
Brown,  considerably  nettled,  "  there  is  my  wife,  Faith.  It 
would  break  her  dear  little  heart,  and  I'd  rather  break  my 


"  Nay,  if  that  be  the  case,"  answered  the  other,  "  e'en 
go  thy  ways,  Goodman  Brown.  I  would  not  for  twenty  old 
women  like  the  one  hobbling  before  us  that  Faith  should 
come  to  any  harm." 

As  he  spoke  he  pointed  his  staff  at  a  female  figure  on  the 
path,  in  whom  Goodman  Brown  recognized  a  very  pious 
and  exemplary  dame  who  had  taught  him  his  catechism  in 
youth,  and  was  still  his  moral  and  spiritual  adviser  jointly 
with  the  minister  and  Deacon  Gookin. 

"  A  marvel,  truly,  that  Goody  Cloyse  should  be  so  far  in 
the  wilderness  at  nightfall,"  said  he.  "  But,  with  your 
leave,  friend,  I  shall  take  a  cut  through  the  woods  until  we 
have  left  this  Christian  woman  behind.  Being  a  stranger 
to  you  she  might  ask  whom  I  was  consorting  with  and 
whither  I  was  going." 

"  Be  it  so,"  said  his  fellow-traveller.  "  Betake  you  to 
the  woods  and  let  me  keep  the  path." 

Accordingly,  the  young  man  turned  aside,  but  took  care 


YOUNG  GOODMAN  BROWN.  63 

to  watch  his  companion,,  who  advanced  softly  along  the 
road  until  he  had  come  within  a  staff's  length  of  the  old 
dame.  She,  meanwhile,,  was  making  the  best  of  her  way 
with  singular  speed  for  so  aged  a  woman  and  mumbling 
some  indistinct  words — a  prayer,  doubtless — as  she  went, 
The  traveler  put  forth  his  staff  and  touched  her  withered 
neck  with  what  seemed  the  serpent's  tail. 

"The  devil!"  screamed  the  pious  old  lady. 

"Then  Goody  Oloyse  knows  her  old  friend?"  observed 
the  traveler,  confronting  her  and  leaning  on  his  writhing 
stick. 

"Ah,  forsooth!  and  is  it  your  worship,  indeed?"  cried 
the  good  dame.  "  Yea,  truly  is  it,  and  in  the  very  image 
of  my  old  gossip  Goodman  Brown,  the  grandfather  of  the 
silly  fellow  that  now  is.  But  would  your  worship  believe 
it?  My  broomstick  hath  strangely  disappeared — stolen  as 
I  suspect,  by  that  unhanged  witch  Goody  Cory,  and  that 
too,  when  I  was  all  anointed  with  the  juice  of  smallage  and 
cinque-foil  and  wolf's-bane — 

"  Mingled  with  fine  wheat  and  the  fat  of  a  new-born 
babe,"  said  the  shape  of  old  Goodman  Brown. 

"Ah!  your  worship  knows  the  recipe,"  cried  the  old 
lady,  cackling  aloud.  "So,  as  I  was  saying,  being  all 
ready  for  the  meeting,  and  no  horse  to  ride  on,  I  made  up 
my  mind  to  foot  it;  for  they  tell  me  there  is  a  nice  young 
man  to  be  taken  into  communion  to-night.  But  now  your 
good  worship  will  lend  me  your  arm  and  we  shall  be  there 
in  a  twinkling." 

"  That  can  hardly  be,"  answered  her  friend.  "I  may 
not  spare  you  my  arm,  Goody  Cloyse,  but  here  is  my  staff, 
if  you  will." 

So  saying,  he  threw  it  down  at  her  feet,  where,  perhaps, 
it  assumed  life,  being  one  of  the  rods  which  its  owner  had 
formerly  lent  to  the  Egyptian  magi.  Of  this  fact,  how 
ever,  Goodman  Brown  could  not  take  cognizance.  He  had 
cast  up  his  eyes  in  astonishment,  and,  looking  down  again, 
beheld  neither  Goody  Cloyse  nor  the  serpentine  staff,  but 
his  fellow-traveler  alone,  who  waited  for  him  as  calmly  as 
if  nothing  had  happened. 

"That  old  woman  taught  me  my  catechism!"  said  the 
young  man;  and  there  was  a  world  of  meaning  in  this 
simple  comment. 

They  continued  to  walk  onward,  while  the  elder  traveler 


64  MOSSES  FMOM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

exhorted  his  companion  to  make  good  speed  and  persevere 
in  the  path,  discoursing  so  aptly  that  his  arguments  seemed 
rather  to  spring  up  in  the  bosom  of  his  auditor  than  to 
be  suggested  by  himself.  As  they  went  he  plucked  a 
branch  of  maple,  to  serve  for  a  walking-stick,  and  began 
to  strip  it  of  the  twigs  and  little  boughs,  which  were  wet 
with  evening  dew.  The  moment  his  lingers  touched  them 
they  became  strangely  withered  and  dried  up,  as  with  a 
week's  sunshine.  Thus  the  pair  proceeded  at  a  good  free 
pace,  until  suddenly,  in  a  gloomy  hollow  of  the  road, 
Goodman  Brown  sat  himself  down  on  the  stump  of  a  tree 
and  refused  to  go  any  farther. 

"  Friend,"  said  he,  stubbornly,  "my  mind  is  made  up. 
Not  another  step  will  I  budge  on  this  errand.  What  if  a 
wretched  old  woman  do  choose  to  go  to  the  devil,  when  I 
thought  she  was  going  to  heaven  ?  Is  that  any  reason  why 
I  should  quit  my  dear  faith  and  go  after  her  ?  " 

"  You  will  think  better  of  this  by  and  by,"  said  his  ac 
quaintance,  composedly.  "  Sit  here  and  rest  yourself 
awhile;  and  when  you  feel  like  moving  again,  there  is  my 
staff  to  help  you  along."  Without  more  words  he  threw 
his  companion  the  maple  stick,  and  was  as  speedily  out  of 
sight  as  if  he  had  vanished  into  the  deepening  gloom. 

The  young  man  sat  a  few  moments  by  the  roadside,  ap 
plauding  himself  greatly  and  thinking  with  how  clear  a 
conscience  he  should  meet  the  minister  in  his  morning 
walk,"  nor  shrink  from  the  eye  of  good  old  Deacon  Gookin. 
And  what  cairn  sleep  would  be  his  that  very  night,  which 
was  to  have  been  spent  so  wickedly,  but  purely  and  sweetly 
now  in  the  arms  of  Faith  ?  Amid  these  pleasant  and 
praiseworthy  meditations  Goodman  Brown  heard  the  tramp 
of  horses  along  the  road,  and  deemed  it  advisable  to  con 
ceal  himself  within  the  verge  of  the  forest,  conscious  of 
the  guilty  purpose  that  had  brought  him  thither,  though 
now  so  happily  turned  from  it. 

On  came  the  hoof-tramps  and  the  voices  of  the  riders — 
two  grave  old  voices  conversing  soberly  as  they  drew  near. 
These  mingled  sounds  appeared  to  pass  along  the  road 
within  a  few  yards  of  the  young  man's  hiding-place,  but, 
owing,  doubtless,  to  the  depth  of  the  gloom  at  that  particu 
lar  spot,  neither  the  travelers  nor  their  steeds  were  visible. 
Though  their  figures  brushed  the  small  boughs  by  the  way 
side,  it  could  not  be  seen  that  they  intercepted  even  for  a 


TO  UNO  GOODMAN  B HO  WW.  65 

moment  the  faint  gleam  from  the  strip  of  bright  sky 
athwart  which  they  must  have  passed.  Goodman  Brown 
alternately  crouched  and  stood  on  tip-toe,  pulling  aside  the 
branches  and  thrusting  forth  his  head  as  far  as  he  dare, 
without  discerning  so  much  as  a  shadow.  It  vexed  him 
the  more  because  he  could  have  sworn,  were  such  a  thing 

K)ssible,  that  he  recognized  the  voices  of  the  minister  and 
eacon  Goo-kin  jogging  along  quietly,  as  they  were  wont 
to  do  when  bound  to  some  ordination  or  ecclesiastical 
council.  While  yet  within  hearing  one  of  tiie  riders 
stopped  to  pluck  a  switch. 

"Of  the  two,  reverend  sir/'  said  the  voice  like  the  dea 
con's,  "  I  had  rather  miss  an  ordination  dinner  than  to 
night's  meeting.  They  tell  me  that  some  of  our  community 
are  to  be  here  from  Fal  mouth  and  beyond,  and  others 
from  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Inland,  besides  several  of  the 
India!i  po\v-wows,  who  after  their  fashion  knew  almost  as 
much  deviltry  as  the  best  of  us.  Moreover,  there  is  a 
goodly  young  woman  to  be  taken  into  communion." 

"  Mighty  well.  Deacon  Gookin  !  "  replied  the  solemn  old 
tones  of  the  minister.  "  Spur  up,  or  we  shall  be  late. 
Nothing  can  be  done,  you  know,  until  I  get  on  the 
ground." 

The  hoofs  clattered  again,  and  the  voices  talking  so 
strangely  in  the  empty  air  passed  on  through  the  forest, 
where  no  church  had  ever  been  gathered  nor  solitary 
Christian  prayed.  Whither,  then,  could  these  holy  men 
be  journeying  so  deep  into  the  heathen  wilderness  ?  Young 
Goodman  Brown  caught  hold  of  a  tree  for  support,  being 
ready  to  sink  down  on  the  ground,  faint  and  overburdened 
with  the  heavy  sickness  of  his  heart.  lie  looked  up  to 
the  sky,  doubting  whether  there  really  was  a  heaven  above 
him  ;  yet  there  was  the  blue  arch  and  the  stars  brighten 
ing  ii!  it. 

"  With  heaven  above  and  Faith  below,  I  will  yet  stand 
firm  against  the  devil  !"  cried  Goodman  Brown. 

While  he  still  gazed  upward  into  the  deep  arch  of  the 
firmament  and  had  lifted  his  hands  to  pray,  a  cloud — 
though  no  wind  was  stirring — hurried  across  the  zenith  and 
hid  the  brightening  stars.  The  blue  sky  was  still  visible 
except  directly  overhead,  where  this  black  mass  of  cloud 
was  sweeping  swiftly  northward.  Aloft  in  the  air,  as  if 
from  the  depths  of  the  cloud,  came  a  confused  and  doubt- 


66  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

fill  sound  of  voices.  Once  the  listener  fancied  that  he 
could  distinguish  the  accents  of  towns-people  of  his  own, 
men  and  women,  both  pious  and  ungodly,  many  of  whom 
he  had  met  at  the  communion-table,  and  had  seen  others 
rioting  at  the  tavern.  The  next  moment,  so  indistinct  were 
the  sounds,  he  doubted  whether  he  had  heard  aught  but 
the  murmur  of  the  old  forest  whispering  without  a  wind. 
Then  came  a  stronger  swell  of  those  familiar  tones  heard 
daily  in  the  sunshine  at  Salem  village,  but  never  until  now 
from  a  cloud  of  night.  There  was  one  voice  of  a  young 
woman  uttering  lamentations,  yet  with  an  uncertain  sor 
row,,  and  entreating  for  some  favor  which  perhaps  it  would 
grieve  her  to  obtain.  And  all  the  unseen  multitude,  both 
saints  and  simmers,  seemed  to  encourage  her  onward. 

"  Faith  \"  shouted  Goodman  Brown,  in  a  voice  of  agony 
and  desperation  ;  and  the  echoes  of  the  forest  mocked  him, 
crying:  "  Faith!  Faith  I"  as  if  bewildered  wretches  were 
seeking  her  all  through  the  wilderness. 

The  cry  of  grief,  rage  and  terror  was  yet  piercing  the 
night,  when  the  unhappy  husband  held  his  breath  for  a  re 
sponse.  There  was  a  scream,  drowned  immediately  in  a 
louder  murmur  of  voices  fading  into  far  off  laughter,  as 
the  dark  cloud  swept  away,  leaving  the  clear  and  silent 
sky  above  Goodman  Brown.  But  something  fluttered 
lightly  down  through  the  air  and  caught  on  the  branch  of 
a  tree.  The  young  man  seized  it  and  beheld  a  pink 
ribbon. 

/""  My  Faith  is  gone  I"  cried  he,  after  one  stupefied  mo-  \ 
I  ment.  "  There  is  no  good  on  earth,  and  sin  is  but  a  name!  ; 
(Come,  devil,  for  to  thee  is  this  world  given  !" 

And  maddened  with  despair,  so  that  he  laughed  loud  and 
long,  did  Goodman  Brown  grasp  his  staff  and  set  forth 
again  at  such  a  rate  that  he  seemed  to  fly  along  the  forest- 
path  rather  than  to  walk  or  run.  The  road  grew  wilder 
and  drearier  and  more  faintly  traced,  and  vanished  at 
length,  leaving  him  in  the  heart  of  the  dark  wilderness, 
still  rushing  onward  with  the  instinct  that  guides  mortal 
man  to  evil.  The  whole  forest  was  peopled  with  frightful 
sounds — the  creaking  of  the  trees,  the  howling  of  wild 
beasts  and  the  yell  of  Indians — while  sometimes  the  wind 
tolled  like  a  distant  church-bell,  and  sometimes  gave  a 
broad  roar  around,  the  traveler,  as  if  all  nature  were  laugh 
ing  him  to  scorn.  But  he  was  himself  the  chief  horror  of 
the  scene,  and  shrank  not  from  its  other  horrors. 


YOUNG  GOODMAN  BROWN.  67 

"  Ha  !  ha  !  ha  !"  roared  Goodman  Brown,  when  the  wind 
laughed  at  him.  ((  Let  us  hear  which  will  laugh  loudest  ; 
think  not  to  frighten  me  with  your  deviltry  !  Come.,  witch  ! 
come,  wizard  !  come,  Indian  pow-wow  !  come,  devil  him 
self  !  And  here  comes  Goodman  Brown.  You  may  as 
well  fear  him  as  he  fear  you." 

In  truth,  all  through  the  haunted  forest  there  could  be 
nothing  more  frightful  than  the  figure  of  Goodman  Brown. 
On  he  new  among  the  black  pines,  brandishing  his  staff  with 
frenzied  gestures,  now  giving  vent  to  an  inspiration  of  hor 
rid  blasphemy,  and  now  shouting  forth  such  laughter  as 
set  all  the  echoes  of  the  forest  laughing  like  demons  around 
him.  The  fiend  in  his  own  shape  is  less  hideous  than  when 
he  rages  in  the  breast  of  man.  Thus  sped  the  demoniac  on 
his  course,  until,  quivering  among  the  trees,  he  saw  a  red 
light  before  him,  as  when  the  felled  trunks  and  branches  of 
a  clearing  have  been  set  on  fire  and  throw  up  their  lurid 
blaze  against  the  sky  at  the  hour  of  midnight.  lie  paused 
in  a  lull  of  the  tempest  that  had  driven  him  onward,  and 
heard  the  swell  of  what  seemed  a  hymn  rolling  solemnly 
from  a  distance  with  the  weight  of  many  voices.  He  knew 
the  tune;  it  was  a  familiar  one  in  the  choir  of  the  village 
meeting-house.  The  verse  died  heavily  away  and  was 
lengthened  by  a  chorus,  not  of  human  voices,  but  of  all 
the  sounds  of  the  benighted  wilderness  pealing  in  awful 
harmony  together.  Goodman  Brown  cried  out  and  his 
cry  was  lost  Co  his  own  ear  by  its  unison  with  the  cry  of 
the  desert. 

In  the  interval  of  silence  he  stole  forward  until  the  light 
glared  full  upon  his  eyes.  At  one  extremity  of  an  open 
space  hemmed  in  by  the  dark  wall  of  the  forest  arose  a 
rock  bearing  some  rude  natural  resemblance  either  to  an 
altar  or  a  pulpit  and  surrounded  by  four  blazing  pines, 
their  tops  aflame,  their  stems  untouched,  like  candles  at  an 
evening  meeting.  The  mass  of  foliage  that  had  overgrown 
the  summit  of  the  rock  was  all  on  fire,  blazing  high  into 
the  night  and  fitfully  illuminating  the  whole  field.  Each 
pendant  twig  and  leafy  festoon  was  in  a  blaze.  As  the  red 
light  arose  and  fell  a  numerous  congregation  alternately 
shone  forth,  then  disappeared  in  shadow  and  again  grew, 
as  it  were,  out  of  the  darkness,  peopling  the  heart  of  the 
solitary  woods  at  once. 

"A  grave  and  dark-clad  company!"  quoth  Goodman 
Brown, 


68  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

In  truth,  they  were  such.  Among  them,  quivering  to 
and  fro  between  gloom  and  splendor,  appeared  faces  that 
would  be  seen  next  day  at  the  council-board  of  the  province 
and  others  which  Sabbath  after  Sabbath  looked  devoutly 
heavenward  and  benignantly  over  the  crowded  pews  from 
the  holiest  pulpits  in  the  land.  Some  affirm  that  the  lady 
of  the  governor  was  there.  At  least,  there  were  high 
dames  well  known  to  her  and  wives  of  honored  husbands 
and  widows  a  great  multitude  and  ancient  maidens  all  of 
excellent  repute  and  fair  young  girls  who  trembled  lest  their 
mothers  should  espy  them.  Either  the  sudden  gleams  of 
light  flashing  over  the  obscure  field  bedazzled  Goodman 
Brown  or  he  recognized  a  score  of  the  church-members  of 
Salem  village  famous  for  their  especial  sanctity.  Good  old 
Deacon  Gookin  had  arrived  and  waited  at  the  skirts  of  that 
venerable  saint  his  reverend  pastor.  But  irreverently  con 
sorting  with  these  grave,  reputable  and  pious  people,  these 
elders  of  the  church,  these  chaste  dames  and  dewy  virgins, 
there  were  men  of  dissolute  lives  and  women  of  spotted 
fame — wretches  given  over  to  all  mean  and  filthy  vice 
and  suspected  even  of  horrid  crimes.  It  was  strange  to 
see  that  the  good  shrank  not  from  the  wicked,  nor  were 
the  sinners  abashed  by  the  saints.  Scattered,  also,  among 
their  pale-faced  enemies  were  the  Indian  priests,  or  pow 
wows,  who  had  often  scared  their  native  forest  with  more 
hideous  incantations  than  any  known  to  English  witchcraft. 

"But  where  is  Faith?"  thought  Goodman  Brown,  and 
as  hope  came  into  his  heart  he  trembled. 

Another  verse  of  the  hymn  arose,  a  slow  and  mournful 
strain  such  as  the  pious  love,  but  joined  to  words  which  ex 
pressed  all  that  our  nature  can  conceive  of  sin  and  darkly 
hinted  at  far  more.  Unfathomable  to  mere  mortals  is  the 
lore  of  fiends.  Verse  after  verse  was  sung  and  still  the 
chorus  of  the  desert  swelled  between  like  the  deepest  tone 
of  a  mighty  organ.  And  with  the  final  peal  of  that  dread 
ful  anthem  there  came  a  sound  as  if  the  roaring  wind,  the 
rushing  streams,  the  howling  beasts  and  every  other  voice 
of  the  unconverted  wilderness,  were  mingling  and  accord 
ing  with  the  voice  of  guilty  man  in  homage  to  the  prince 
of  all.  The  four  blazing  pines  threw  np  a  loftier  flarne 
and  obscurely  discovered  shapes  and  visages  of  horror  on 
the  smoke-wreaths  above  the  impious  assembly.  At  the 
same  moment  the  lire  on  the  rock  shot  redly  forth  and 


YOUNG  GOODMAN  BROWN.  60 

formed  a  glowing  arch  above  its  base,  where  now  appeared 
a  figure.  With  reverence  be  it  spoken,  the  apparition  bore 
no  slight  similitude,  both  in  garb  and  manner,  to  some 
grave  divine  of  the  New  England  churches. 

"  Bring  forth  the  converts  !"  cried  a  voice  that  echoed 
through  the  field  and  rolled  into  the  forest. 

At  the  word  Goodman  Brown  stepped  forth  from  the 
shadow  of  the  trees  and  approached  the  congregation,  with 
whom  he  felt  a  loathful  brotherhood  by  the  sympathy  of 
all  that  was  wicked  in  his  heart.  He  could  have  well-nigh 
sworn  that  the  shape  of  his  own  dead  father  beckoned  him 
to  advance,  looking  downward  from  a  smoke- wreath,  while 
a  woman  with  dim  features  of  despair  threw  out  her  hand 
to  warn  him  back.  Was  it  his  mother?  But  he  had  no 
power  to  retreat  one  step  nor  to  resist  even  in  thought 
when  the  minister  and  good  old  Deacon  Gookin  seized  his 
arms  and  led  him  to  the  blazing  rock.  Thither  came,  also, 
the  slender  form  of  a  veiled  female,  led  between  Goody 
Cloyse,  that  pious  teacher  of  the  catechism,  and  Martha 
Carrier,  who  had  received  the  devil's  promise  to  be  queen 
of  hell.  A  rampant  hag  was  she  !  And  there  stood  the 
proselytes,  beneath  the  canopy  of  fiie. 

"  Welcome,  my  children/'  said  the  dark  figure,  "  to 
the  communion  of  your  race!  Ye  have  found  thus  young 
your  nature  and  your  destiny.  My  children,  look  behind 
you  !" 

They  turned,  and,  flashing  forth,  as  it  were,  in  a  sheet  of 
flame,  the  fiend-worshipers  were  seen;  the  smile  of  welcome 
gleamed  darkly  on  every  visage. 

f  There,"  resumed  the  sable  form,  "are  all  whom  ye 
have  reverenced  from  youth.  Ye  deemed  them  holier  than 
yourselves  and  shrunk  from  your  own  sin,  contrasting  it 
with  their  lives  of  righteousness  and  prayerful  aspirations 
heavenward.  Yret  here  are  they  all  in  my  worshiping 
assembly!  This  night  it  shall  be  granted  you  to  know 
their  secret  deeds — how  hoary-bearded  elders  of  the  church 
have  whispered  wanton  words  to  the  young  maids  of  their 
households,  how  many  a  woman  eager  for  widow's  weeds 
has  given  her  husband  a  drink  at  bedtime  and  let  him 
sleep  his  last  sleep  in  her  bosom,  how  beardless  youths  have 
made  haste  to  inherit  their  father's  wealth,  and  how  fair 
damsels --blush  not,  sweet  ones!  have  dug  little  graves  in 
the  garden  and  bidden  me,  the  sole  guest,  to  an  infant's 


70  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

funeral.  By  the  sympathy  of  your  human  hearts  for  sin 
ye  shall  scent  out  all  the  places — whether  in  church,  bed 
chamber,  street,  field  or  forest — where  crime  has  been  com 
mitted,  and  shall  exult  to  behold  the  whole  earth  one  stain 
of  guilt,  one  mighty  blood-spot.  Far  more  than  this;  it 
shall  be  yours  to  penetrate  in  every  bosom  the  deep  mystery 
of  sin,  the  fountain  of  all  wicked  arts,  and  which  inex 
haustibly  supplies  more  evil  impulses  than  human  power — 
than  my  power  at  its  utmost — can  make  manifest  in  deeds. 
And  now,  my  children,  look  upon  each  other."  / 

They  did  so,  and  by  the  blaze  of  the  hell-kindled  torches 
the  wretched  man  beheld  his  Faith,  and  the  wife  her  hus 
band,  trembling  before  that  unhallowed  altar. 

"  Lo!  there  ye  stand,  my  children/'  said  the  figure,  in  a 
deep  and  solemn  tone  almost  sad  with  its  despairing  awful- 
ness,  as  if  his  once  angelic  nature  could  yet  mourn  for  our 
miserable  race.  "  Depending  upon  one  another's  hearts, 
ye  had  still  hoped  that  virtue  were  not  all  a  dream;  now 
are  ye  undeceived.  Evil  is  the  nature  of  mankind;  evil 
must  be  your  only  happiness.  Welcome,  again,  my  chil 
dren,  to  the  communion  of  your  race!" 

"  Welcome!'7  repeated  the  fiend- worshipers,  in  one  cry 
of  despair  and  triumph. 

And  there  they  stood,  the  only  pair,  as  it  seemed,  who 
were  yet  hesitating  on  the  verge  of  wickedness  in  this  dark 
world.  A  basin  was  hollowed  naturally  in  the  rock.  Did 
it  contain  water  reddened  by  the  lurid  light?  or  was  it 
blood,  or  perchance  a  liquid  flame?  Herein  did  the  Shape 
of  Evil  dip  his  hand  and  prepare  to  lay  the  mark  of  bap 
tism  upon  their  foreheads,  that  they  might  be  partakers  of 
the  mystery  of  sin,  more  conscious  of  the  secret  guilt  of 
others,  both  in  deed  and  thought,  then  they  could  now  be 
of  their  own.  The  husband  cast  one  look  at  his  pale  wife, 
and  Faith  at  him.  What  polluted  wretches  would  the  next 
glance  show  them  to  each  other,  shuddering  alike  at  what 
they  disclosed  and  what  they  saw  ! 

"  Faith !  Faith !"  cried  the  husband.  Look  up  to  heaven 
and  resist  the  wicked  one!" 

Whether  Faith  obeyed  he  knew  not.  Hardly  had  he 
spoken  when  he  found  himself  amid  calm  night  and  soli 
tude  listening  to  a  roar  of  the  wind  which  died  heavily 
away  through  the  forest.  He  staggered  against  the  rock 
and  felt  it  chill  and  damp,  while  a  hanging  twig  that  had 


YOUNG  GOODMAN  UROWN.  71 

been  all  on  fire  besprinkled  his  cheek  with  the  coldest 
dew. 

The  next  morning  young  Goodman  Brown  came  slowly 
into  the  street  of  Salem  village  staring  around  him  like  a 
bewildered  man.  The  good  old  minister  was  taking  a 
walk  along  the  grave-yard  to  get  an  appetite  for  breakfast 
and  meditate  bis  sermon,  and  bestowed  a  blessing  as  he 
passed  on  Goodman  Brown;  he  shrank  from  the  venerable 
saint  as  if  to  avoid  an  anathema.  Old  Deacon  Gookin 
was  at  domestic  worship,  and  the  holy  words  of  his  prayer 
were  heard  through  the  open  window:  "  What  God  doth 
the  wizard  pray  to?"  quoth  Goodman  Brown.  Goody 
Cloysc,  that  excellent  old  Christian,  stood  in  the  early  sun 
shine  at  her  own  lattice  catechising  a  little  girl  who  had 
brought  her  a  pint  of  morning's  milk;  Goodman  Brown 
snatched  away  the  child  as  from  the  grasp  of  the  fiend 
himself.  Turning  the  corner  by  the  meeting-house  he 
spied  the  head  of  Faith,  with  the  pink  ribbons,  gazing 
anxiously  forth,  and  bursting  into  such  joy  at  sight  of  him 
that  she  skipped  along  the  street  and  almost  kissed  her 
husband  before  the  whole  village;  but  Goodman  Brown 
looked  sternly  and  sadly  into  her  face  and  passed  on  with 
out  a  greeting. 

Had  Goodman  Brown  fallen  asleep  in  the  forest  and 
only  dreamed  a  wild  dream  of  a  witch  meeting?  Be  it  so, 
if  you  will.  But,  alas!  it  was  a  dream  of  evil  omen  for 
young  Goodman  Brown.  A  stern,  a  sad,  a  darkly  medi 
tative,  a  distrustful,  if  not  a  desperate,  man  did  he  be 
come  from  the  night  of  that  fearful  dream.  On  the  Sab 
bath  day  when  the  congregation  was  singing  a  holy  psalm 
he  could  not  listen  because  an  anthem  of  sin  rushed  loudly 
upon  his  ear  and  drowned  all  the  blessed  strain.  When 
the  minister  spoke  from  the  pulpit  with  power  and  fervid 
eloquence  and  with  his  hand  on  the  open  bible  of  the 
sacred  truths  of  our  religion  and  of  saint-like  lives  and 
triumphant  deaths  and  of  future  bliss  or  misery  unutter 
able,  then  did  Goodman  Brown  turn  pale,  dreading  lest 
the  roof  should  thunder  down  upon  the  gray  blasphemer 
and  his  hearers.  Often,  awaking  suddenly  at  midnight, 
he  shrank  from  the  bosom  of  Faith,  and  at  morning  or 
eventide  when  the  family  knelt  down  at  prayer  he  scowled 
and  muttered  to  himself  and  gazed  sternly  at  his  wife  and 
turned  away.  And  when  he  had  lived  long  and  was 


72  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

borne  to  his  grave  a  hoary  corpse,  followed  by  Faith,  an 
aged  woman,  and  children  and  grandchildren,  a  goodly 
procession,  besides  neighbors  not  a  few,  they  carved  no 
hopeful  verse  upon  his  tombstone;  for  his  dying  hour  was 
gloom. 


RAPPACCINFS  DA  UGUTER.  73 


RAPPACCINI'S  DAUGHTER. 


A  YOUXG  man  named  Giovanni  Gnasconti  came  very 
long  ago  from  the  more  southern  region  of  Italy  to  pursue 
his  studies  at  the  University  of  Padua.  Giovanni,  who 
had  but  a  scanty  supply  of  gold  ducats  in  his  pocket,  took 
lodgings  in  a  high  and  gloomy  chamber  of  an  old  edifice 
which  looked  not  unworthy  to  have  been  the  palace  of  a 
Paduan  noble,  and  which,  in  fact,  exhibited  over  its  en 
trance  the  armorial  bearings  of  a  family  long  since  extinct. 
The  young  stranger,  who  was  not  unstudied  in  the  great 
poem  of  his  country,  recollected  that  one  of  the  ancestors 
of  this  family,  and  perhaps  an  occupant  of  this  very  man 
sion,  had  been  pictured  by  Dante  as  a  partaker  of  the  im 
mortal  agonies  of  his  Inferno.  These  reminiscences  and 
associations,  together  with  the  tendency  to  heartbreak  nat 
ural  to  a  young  man  for  the  first  time  out  of  his  native 
sphere,  caused  Giovanni  to  sigh  heavily  as  he  looked 
around  the  desolate  and  ill-furnished  apartment. 

"Holy  Virgin,  signor!"  cried  old  Dame  Lisabetta,  who, 
won  by  the  youth's  remarkable  beauty  of  person,  was 
kindly  endeavoring  to  give  the  chamber  a  habitable  air; 
"  what  a  sigh  was  that  to  come  out  of  a  young  man's  heart! 
Do  you  find  this  old  mansion  gloomy?  For  the  love  of 
Heaven,  then,  put  your  head  out  of  the  window,  and  you 
will  see  as  bright  sunshine  as  you  have  left  in  Naples/' 

Guasconti  mechanically  did  as  the  old  woman  advised, 
but  could  not  quite  agree  with  her  that  the  Lombard  sun 
shine  was  as  cheerful  as  that  of  Southern  Italy.  Such  as  it 
was,  however,  it  fell  upon  a  garden  beneath  the  window, 
and  expended  its  fostering  influences  on  a  variety  of 
plants  which  seemed  to  have  been  cultivated  with  exceed- 


74  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"Does  this  garden  belong  to  the  house?"  asked  Gio 
vanni. 

"Heaven  forbid,  signor,  unless  it  were  fruitful  of  better 
pot-herbs  than  any  that  grow  there  now/'  answered  old 
Lisabetta.  "  No;  that  garden  is  cultivated  by  the  own 
hands  of  Signor  Giacomo  Rappaccini,  the  famous  doctor 
who,  I  warrant  him,  has  been  heard  of  as  far  as  Naples. 
It  is  said  that  he  distills  these  plants  into  medicines  that 
are  as  potent  as  a  charm.  Oftentimes  you  may  see  the 
Signor  Doctor  at  work,  and  perchance  the  signora  his 
daughter,  too,  gathering  the  strange  flowers  that  grow  in 
the  garden." 

The  old  woman  had  now  done  what  she  could  for  the 
aspect  of  the  chamber,  and,  commending  the  young  man 
to  the  protection  of  the  saints,  took  her  departure. 

Giovanni  still  found  no  better  occupation  than  to  look 
down  into  the  garden  beneath  his  window.  From  its  ap 
pearance  he  judged  it  to  be  one  of  those  botanic  gardens 
which  were  of  earlier  date  in  Padua  than  elsewhere  in  Italy, 
or  in  the  world.  Or,  not  improbably,  it  might  once  have 
been  the  pleasure-place  of  an  opulent  family;  for  there  was 
the  ruin  of  a  marble  fountain  in  the  center,  sculptured  with 
rare  art,  but  so  wof  ully  shattered  that  it  was  impossible  to 
trace  the  original  design  from  the  chaos  of  remaining  frag 
ments.  The  water,  however,  continued  to  gush  and  sparkle 
into  the  sunbeams  as  cheerfully  as  ever.  A  little  gurgling 
sound  ascended  to  the  young  man's  window  and  made  him 
feel  as  if  a  fountain  were  an  immortal  spirit  that  sung  its 
song  unceasingly,  and  without  heeding  the  vicissitudes 
around  it,  while  one  century  embodied  it  in  marble  and  an 
other  scattered  the  perishable  garniture  on  the  soil.  All 
about  the  pool  into  which  the  water  subsided  grew  various 
plants  that  seemed  to  require  a  plentiful  supply  of  moisture 
for  the  nourishment  of  gigantic  leaves,  and  in  some  in 
stances  flowers  gorgeously  magnificent.  There  was  one 
shrub  in  particular,  set  in  a  marble  vase  in  the  midst  of 
the  pool,  that  bore  a  profusion  of  purple  blossoms,  each  of 
which  had  the  luster  and  richness  of  a  gem,  and  the  whole 
together  made  a  show  so  resplendent  that  it  seemed 
enough  to  illuminate  the  garden  even  had  there  been  no 
sunshine.  Every  portion  of  the  soil  was  peopled  with 
plants  and  herbs  which,  if  less  beautiful,  still  bore  tokens 
of  assiduous  care,  as  if  all  had  their  individual  virtues, 


RAPPACCINPS  DA  UGHTER.  75 

known  to  the  scientific  mind  that  fostered  them.  Some 
were  placed  in  urns  rich  with  old  carving  and  others  in 
common  garden-pots;  some  crept  serpent-like  along  the 
ground  or  climbed  on  high,  using  whatever  means  of 
ascent  was  offered  them.  One  plant  had  wreathed  itself 
round  a  statue  of  Vertumnus,  which  was  thus  quite  veiled 
and  shrouded  in  a  drapery  of  hanging  foliage  so  happily 
arranged  that  it  might  have  served  a  sculptor  for  a  study. 

While  Giovanni  stood  at  the  window  he  heard  a  rustling 
behind  a  screen  of  leaves,  and  became  aware  that  a  person 
was  at  work  in  the  garden.  His  figure  soon  emerged  into 
view  and  showed  itself  to  be  that  of  no  common  laborer, 
but  a  tall,  emaciated,  sallow  and  sickly  looking  man  dressed 
in  a  scholar's  garb  of  black.  .He  was  beyond  the  middle 
term  of  life,  with  gray  hair,  a  thin  gray  beard  and  a  face 
singularly  marked  with  intellect  and  cultivation,  but 
which  could  never,  even  in  his  more  youthful  days,  have 
expressed  much  warmth  of  heart. 

Nothing  could  exceed  the  intentness  with  which  this 
scientific  gardener  examined  every  shrub  which  grew  in 
his  path;  it  seemed  as  if  he  was  looking  into  their  inmost 
nature,  making  observations  in  regard  to  their  creative 
essence,  and  discovering  why  one  leaf  grew  in  this  shape 
and  another  in  that,  and  wherefore  such  and  such  flowers 
differed  among  themselves  in  hue  and  perfume.  Neverthe 
less,  in  spite  of  the  deep  intelligence  on  his  part,  there  was 
no  approach  to  intimacy  between  himself  and  these  vege 
table  existences.  On  the  contrary,  he  avoided  their  actual 
touch  or  the  direct  inhaling  of  their  odors  with  a  caution 
that  impressed  Giovanni  most  disagreeably;  for  the  man's 
demeanor  was  that  of  one  walking  among  malignant  influ 
ences,  such  as  savage  beasts  or  deadly  snakes  or  evil  spirits, 
which,  should  he  allow  them  one  moment  of  license,  would 
wreak  upon  him  some  terrible  fatality.  It  was  strangely 
frightful  to  the  young  man's  imagination  to  see  this  air  of 
insecurity  in  a  person  cultivating  a  garden — that  most 
simple  and  innocent  of  human  toils,  and  which  had  been 
alike  the  joy  and  labor  of  the  unfallen  parents  of  the  race. 
Was  this  garden,  then,  the  Eden  of  the  present  world? 
and  this  man,  with  such  a  perception  of  harm  in  what  his 
own  hands  caused  to  grow,  was  he  the  Adam? 

The  distrustful  gardener,  while  plucking  away  the  dead 
leaves  or  pruning  the  too  luxuriant  growth  of  the  shrubs, 


76  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

defended  his  hands  with  a  pair  of  thick  gloves.  Nor  were 
these  his  only  armor.  When,  in  his  walk  through  the 
garden,  he  came  to  the  magnificent  plant  that  hung  its 
purple  gems  beside  the  marble  fountain,  he  placed  a  kind 
of  mask  over  his  mouth  and  nostrils,  as  if  all  this  beauty 
did  but  conceal  a  deadlier  malice.  But,  finding  his  task 
still  too  dangerous,  he  drew  back,  removed  the  mask  and 
called  loudly,  but  in  the  infirm  voice  of  a  person  affected 
with  inward  disease: 

"Beatrice!  Beatrice!" 

"Here  am  I,  my  father!  What  would  you?"  cried  a 
rich  and  youthful  voice  from  the  window  of  the  opposite 
house — a  voice  as  rich  as  a  tropical  sunset,  and  which  made 
Giovanni,  though  he  knew  not  why,  think  of  deep  hues  of 
purple  or  crimson  and  of  perfumes  heavily  delectable. 
"  Are  you  in  the  garden?" 

"  Yes,  Beatrice,"  answered  the  gardener,  "  and  I  need 
your  help." 

Soon  there  emerged  from  under  a  sculptured  portal  the 
figure  of  a  young  girl  arrayed  with  as  much  richness  of 
taste  as  the  most  splendid  of  the  flowers,  beautiful  as  the 
day  and  with  a  bloom  so  deep  and  vivid  that  one  shade 
more  would  have  been  too  much.  She  looked  redundant 
with  life,  health  and  energy;  all  of  which  attributes  were 
bound  down  and  compressed,  as  it  were,  and  girdled 
tensely  in  their  luxuriance  by  her  virgin-zone.  Yet 
Giovanni's  fancy  must  have  grown  morbid  while  he  looked 
down  into  the  garden,  for  the  impression  which  the  fair 
stranger  made  upon  him  was  as  if  here  were  another  flower, 
the  human  sister  of  these  vegetable  ones,  as  beautiful  as 
they — more  beautiful  than  the  richest  of  them — but  still 
to  be  touched  only  with  a  glove,  nor  to  be  approached 
without  a  mask.  As  Beatrice  came  down  the  garden-path  it 
was  observable  that  she  handled  and  inhaled  the  odor  of 
several  of  the  plants  which  her  father  had  almost  sedulously 
avoided. 

"  Here,  Beatrice,"  said  the  latter;  "see  how  many  need 
ful  offices  require  to  be  done  to  our  chief  treasurer.  Yet, 
shattered  as  I  am,  my  life  might  pay  the  penalty  of  ap 
proaching  it  so  closely  as  circumstances  demand.  Hence 
forth,  I  fear,  this  plant  must  be  consigned  to  your  sole 
charge." 

"And  gladly  will  I  undertake  it,"  cried  again  the  rich 


RAPPACCINPS  DAUGHTER. 


77 


tones  of  the  young  lady  as  she  bent  toward  the  magnificent 
plant  and  opened  her 'arms  as  if  to  embrace  it.  "Yes, 
my  sister,  my  splendor,  it  shall  be  Beatrice's  task  to  nurse 
and  serve  thee,  and  thou  shalt  reward  her  with  thy 
kisses  and  perfume-breath,  which  to  her  is  as  the  breath  of 
life." 

Then,  with  all  the  tenderness  in  her  manner  that  was  so 
strikingly  expressed  in  her  words,  she  busied  herself  with 
such  attentions  as  the  plant  seemed  to  require;  and  Gio 
vanni,  at  his  lofty  window,  rubbed  his  eyes  and  almost 
doubted  whether  it  were  a  girl  tending  her  favorite 
flower  or  one  sister  performing  the  duties  of  affection  to 
another. 

The  scene  soon  terminated.  Whether  Dr.  Rappaccini 
had  finished  his  labor  in  the  garden  or  that  his  watchful 
eye  had  caught  the  stranger's  face,  he  now  took  his  daugh 
ter's  arm  and  retired.  Night  was  already  closing  in;  op 
pressive  exhalations  seemed  to  proceed  from  the  plants  and 
steal  upward  past  the  open  window,  and  Giovanni,  closing 
the  lattice,  went  to  his  couch  and  dreamed  of  a  rich  flower 
and  beautiful  girl.  Flower  and  maiden  were  different,  and 
and  yet  the  same,  and  fraught  with  some  strange  peril  in 
either  shape. 

But  there  is  an  influence  in  the  light  of  morning  that 
tends  to  rectify  whatever  error  of  fancy,  or  even  of  judg 
ment,  we  may  have  incurred  during  the  sun's  decline,  or 
among  the  shadows  of  the  night,  or  in  the  less  wholesome 
glow  of  moonshine.  Giovanni's  first  movement  on  starting 
from  sleep  was  to  throw  open  the  window  and  gaze  down 
into  the  garden  which  his  dreams  had  made  so"  fertile  of 
mysteries.  He  was  surprised  and  a  little  ashamed,  to  find 
how  real  and  matter-of-fact  an  affair  it  proved  to  be  in  the 
iirst  rays  of  the  sun,  which  glided  the  dew-drops  that  hung 
upon  leaf  and  blossom,  and,  while  giving  a  brighter 
beauty  to  each  rare  flower,  brought  everything  within  the 
limits  of  ordinary  experience.  The  young  men  rejoiced 
that  in  the  heart  of  the  barren  city  he  had  the  privilege 
of  overlooking  this  spot  of  lovely  and  luxuriant  vegetation. 
It  would  serve,  he  said  to  himself,  as  a  symbolic  language  to 
keep  in  communion  with  Nature.  Neither  the  sickly  and 
thought-worn  Dr.  Giacomo  Rappaccini,  it  is  true,  nor  his 
brilliant  daughter,  was  now  visible;  so  that  Giovanni  could 
not  determine  how  much  of  the  singularity  which  he  at- 


78  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

tributed  to  both  was  due  to  their  own  qualities,  and  how 
much  to  his  wonder-working  fancy.  But  he  was  inclined 
to  take  a  most  rational  view  of  the  whole  matter. 

In  the  course  of  the  day  he  paid  his  respects  to  Signer 
Pietro  Baglioni,  professor  of  medicine  in  the  university,  a 
physician  of  eminent  repute  to  whom  Giovanni  had  brought 
a  letter  of  introduction.  The  professor  was  an  elderly  per 
sonage,  apparently  of  genial  nature  and  habits  that  might 
almost  be  called  jovial;  he  kept  the  young  man  to  dinner 
and  made  himself  very  agreeable  by  the  freedom  and  live 
liness  of  his  conversation,  especially  when  warmed  by  a 
flask  or  two  of  Tuscan  wine.  Giovanni,  conceiving  that 
men  of  science,  inhabitants  of  the  same  city,  must  needs 
be  on  familiar  terms  with  one  another,  took  an  opportunity 
to  mention  the  name  of  Dr.  Rappaccini.  But  the  pro 
fessor  did  not  respond  with  so  much  cordiality  as  he  had 
anticipated. 

"  111  would  it  become  a  teacher  of  the  divine  art  of  medi 
cine,"  said  Prof.  Pietro  Baglioni,  in  answer  to  a  question 
of  Giovanni,  "  to  withhold  due  and  well-considered  praise 
of  a  physician  so  eminently  skilled  as  Rappaccini.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  I  should  answer  it  but  scantily  to  my  con 
science  were  I  to  permit  a  worthy  youth  like  yourself,  Sig- 
nor  Giovanni,  the  son  of  an  ancient  friend,  to  imbibe 
erroneous  ideas  respecting  a  man  who  might  hereafter 
chance  to  hold  your  life  and  death  in  his  hands.  The 
truth  is,  our  worshipful  Dr.  Rappaccini  has  as  much 
science  as  any  member  of  the  faculty — with,  perhaps,  one 
single  exception — in  Padua  or  all  Italy,  but  there  are  cer 
tain  grave  objections  to  his  professional  character." 

"And  what  are  they?"  asked  the  young  mau. 

"Has  my  friend  Giovanni  any  disease  of  body  or  heart, 
that  he  is  so  inquisitive  about  physicians?7''  said  the  pro 
fessor,  with  a  smile.  "But,  as  for  Rappaccini,  it  is  said 
of  him — and  I,  who  know  the  man  well,  can  answer  for  its 
truth — that  he  cares  infinitely  more  for  science  than  for 
mankind.  His  patients  are  interesting  to  him  only  as 
isubjects  for  some  new  experiment.  He  would  sacrifice 
human  life — his  own  among  the  rest — or  whatever  else  was 
dearest  to  him,  for  the  sake  of  adding  so  much  as  a  grain 
of  mustard-seed  to  the  great  heap  of  his  accumulated 
knowledge." 

*'  Methinks   he   is   an  awful   man,    indeed,"   remarked 


EAPPACGINVS  DA  UGHTER.  79 

Guasconti,  mentally  recalling  the  cold  and  purely  intel 
lectual  aspect  of  Eappaccini.  "  And  yet,  worshipful  pro 
fessor,  is  it  not  a  noble  spirit?  Are  there  many  men  capa 
ble  of  so  spiritual  a  love  of  science?" 

"  God  forbid !"  answered  the  professor,  somewhat  testily 
— "at  least,  unless  they  take  sounder  views  of  the  healing 
art  than  those  adopted  by  Eappaccini.  It  is  his  theory 
that  all  medicinal  virtues  are  comprised  within  those  sub 
stances  which  we  term  vegetable  poisons.  These  he  cultivates 
with  his  own  hands,  and  is  said  even  to  have  produced  new 
varieties  of  poison  more  horribly  deleterious  than  Nature, 
without  the  assistance  of  this  learned  person,  would  ever 
have  plagued  the  world  with.  That  the  Signer  Doctor 
does  less  mischief  than  might  be  expected  with  such 
dangerous  substances  is  undeniable.  Now  and  then,  it 
must  be  owned,  he  has  effected,  or  seemed  to  effect,  a  mar 
velous  cure.  But,  to  tell  you  my  private  mind,  Signer 
Giovanni,  he  should  receive  little  credit  for  such  instances 
of  success — they  being,  probably,  the  work  of  chance — but 
should  be  held  strictly  accountable  for  his  failures,  which 
may  justly  be  considered  his  own  work." 

The  youth  might  have  taken  Baglioni's  opinions  with 
many  grains  of  allowance  had  he  known  that  there  was  a 
professional  warfare  of  long  continuance  between  him  and 
Dr.  Kappaccini,  in  which  the  latter  was  generally  thought 
to  have  gained  the  advantage.  If  the  reader  be  inclined 
to  judge  for  himself,  we  refer  him  to  certain  black-letter 
tracts  on  both  sides  preserved  in  the  medical  department 
of  the  University  of  Padua. 

"  I  know  not,  most  learned  professor,"  returned  Gio 
vanni,  after  musing  on  what  had  been  said  of  Kappaccini's 
exclusive  zeal  for  science — "  I  know  not  how  dearly  this 
physician  may  love  his  art,  but  surely  there  is  one  object 
more  dear  to  him.  He  has  a  daughter." 

"Aha!"  cried  the  professor,  with  a  laugh.  "  So  now  our 
friend  Giovanni's  secret  is  out!  You  have  heard  of  this 
daughter,  whom  all  the  young  men  in  Padua  are  wild  about, 
though  not  half  a  dozen  have  ever  had  the  good  hap  to  see 
her  face.  I  know  little  of  the  Signora  Beatrice  save  that 
Rappaccini  is  said  to  have  instructed  her  deeply  in  his 
science,  and  that,  young  and  beautiful  as  fame  reports  her, 
she  is  already  qualified  to  fill  a  professor's  chair.  Per 
chance  her  father  destines  her  for  mine.  Other  absurd 


80  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

rumors  there  be,  not  worth  talking  about  or  listening  to.  So 
now,  Signer  Giovanni,  drink  off  your  glass  of  Lacryma." 

Guasconti  returned  to  his  lodgings  somewhat  heated  with 
the  wine  he  had  quaffed,  and  which  caused  his  brain  to 
swim  with  strange  fantasies  in  reference  to  Dr.  Rappaccini 
and  the  bautiful  Beatrice.  On  his  way,  happening  to  pass 
by  a  florist's,  he  bought  a  fresh  bouquet  of  flowers. 

Ascending  to  his  chamber,  he  seated  himself  near  the 
window,  but  within  the  shadow  thrown  by  the  depth  of  the 
wall,  so  that  he  could  look  down  into  the  garden  with  little 
risk  of  being  discovered.  All  beneath  his  eye  was  a  soli 
tude.  The  strange  plants  were  basking  in  the  sunshine, 
and  now  and  then  nodding  gently  to  one  another,  as  if  in 
acknowledgment  of  sympathy  and  kindred.  In  the  midst 
by  the  shattered  fountain,  grew  the  magnificent  shrub, 
with  its  purple  gems  clustering  all  over  it;  they  glowed  in 
the  air  and  gleamed  back  again  out  of  the  depths  of  the 
pool,  which  thus  seemed  to  overflow  with  colored  radiance 
from  the  rich  reflection  that  was  steeped  in  it.  At  first,  as 
we  have  said,  the  garden  was  a  solitude.  Soon,  however,  as 
Giovanni  had  half  hoped,  half  feared  would  be  the  case,  a 
figure  appeared  beneath  the  antiqued  sculptured  portal  and 
came  down  between  the  rows  of  plants,  inhaling  their  vari 
ous  perfumes  as  if  she  were  one  of  those  beings  of  old  clas 
sic  fables  that  lived  on  sweet  odors.  On  again  beholding 
Beatrice  the  young  man  was  even  startled  to  perceive  how 
much  her  beauty  exceeded  his  recollection  of  it — so  brill 
iant,  so  vivid  in  its  character,  that  she  glowed  amid  the 
sunlight,  and,  as  Giovanni  whispered  to  himself,  positively 
illuminated  the  more  shadowy  intervals  of  the  garden  path. 
Her  face  being  now  more  revealed  than  on  the  former  oc 
casion,  he  was  struck  by  its  expression  of  simplicity  and 
sweetness — qualities  that  had  not  entered  into  his  idea  of 
her  character,  and  which  made  him  ask  anew  what  manner 
of  mortal  she  might  be.  Nor  did  he  fail  again  to  observe 
or  imagine  an  analogy  between  the  beautiful  girl  and  the 
gorgeous  shrub  that  hung  its  gem-like  flowers  over  the  fount 
ain — a  resemblance  which  Beatrice  seemed  to  have  in 
dulged  a  fantastic  humor  in  heightening  both  by  the  ar 
rangement  of  her  dress  and  the  selection  of  its  hues. 

Approaching  the  shrub,  she  threw  open  her  arms  as  with 
a  passionate  ardor,  and  drew  its  branches  into  an  intimate 
embrace — so  intimate  that  her  features  were  hidden  in  its 


RAPPACCINI'S  DA  UGHTER.  81 

leafy  bosom  and  her  glistening  ringlets  all  intermingled 
with  the  flowers. 

"  Give  me  thy  breath,  my  sister,"  exclaimed  Beatrice, 
"for  I  am  faint  with  common  air.  And  give  me  this  flower 
of  thine,  which  I  separate  with  gentlest  fingers  from  the 
stern  and  place  it  close  beside  my  heart." 

With  these  words  the  beautiful  daughter  of  Rappaccini 
plucked  one  of  the  richest  blossoms  of  the  shrub,  and  was 
about  to  fasten  it  in  her  bosom.  But  now,  unless  Giovanni's 
draughts  of  wine  had  bewildered  his  senses,  a  singular  in 
cident  occurred.  A  small  orange  colored  reptile  of  the 
lizard  or  chameleon  species  chanced  to  be  creeping  along 
the  path  just  at  the  feet  of  Beatrice.  It  appeared  to 
Giovanni,  but  at  the  distance  from  which  he  gazed  he  could 
scarcely  have  seen  anything  so  minute — it  appeared  to  him, 
however,  that  a  drop  or  two  of  moisture  from  the  broken 
stem  of  the  flower  descended  upon  the  lizard's  head. 
For  an  instant  the  reptile  contorted  itself  violently,  and 
then  lay  motionless  in  the  sunshine.  Beatrice  observed  this 
remarkable  phenomenon  and  crossed  herself  sadly,  but 
without  surprise;  nor  did  she  therefore  hesitate  to  arrange 
the  fatal  flower  in  her  bosom.  There  it  blushed,  and 
almost  glimmered  with  the  dazzling  effect  of  a  precious 
stone,  adding  to  her  dress  and  aspect  the  one  appropriate 
charm  which  nothing  else  in  the  world  could  have  sup 
plied.  But  Giovanni,  out  of  the  shadow  of  his  window, 
bent  forward  and  shrank  back,  and  murmured  and  trem 
bled. 

"Am  I  awake?  Have  I  my  senses?"  said  he  to  himself. 
"What  is  this  being?  Beautiful  shall  I  call  her,  or  inex- 
pressiblv  terrible?'' 

Beatrice  now  strayed  carelessly  through  the  garden,  ap 
proaching  closer  beneath  Giovanni's  window;  so  that  he 
was  compelled  to  thrust  his  head  quite  out  of  its  conceal 
ment  in  order  to  gratify  the  intense  and  painful  curiosity 
which  she  excited.  At  this  moment  there  came  a  beautiful 
insect  over  the  garden  wall ;  it  had  perhaps  wandered 
through  the  city  and  found  no  flowers  nor  verdure  among 
those  antique  haunts  of  men  until  the  heavy  perfumes  of 
Dr.  Eappaccini's  shrubs  had  lured  it  from  afar.  Without 
alighting  on  the  flowers  this  winged  brightness  seemed  to 
be  attracted  by  Beatrice,  and  lingered  in  the  air  and  flut 
tered  about  her  head.  Now,  here  it  could  not  be  but  that 


82  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

Giovanni  GuascontPs  eyes  deceived  him.  Be  that  as  it 
might,  he  fancied  that  while  Beatrice  was  gazing  at  the 
insect  with  childish  delight  it  grew  faint  and  fell  at  her 
feet.  Its  bright  wings  shivered  ;  it  was  dead — from  no 
cause  that  he  could  discern,  unless  it  were  the  atmosphere 
of  her  breath.  Again  Beatrice  crossed  herself  and  sighed 
heavily  as  she  bent  over  the  dead  insect. 

An  impulsive  movement  of  Giovanni  drew  her  eyes  to 
the  window.  There  she  beheld  the  beautiful  head  of  the 
young  man — rather  a  Grecian  than  an  Italian  head,  with 
fair,  regular  features  and  a  glistening  of  gold  among  his 
ringlets — gazing  down  upon  her  like  a  being  that  hovered 
in  mid-air.  Scarcely  knowing  what  he  did,  Giovanni 
threw  down  the  bouquet  which  he  had  hitherto  held  in  his 
hand. 

"  Signora,"  said  he,  "  there  are  pure  and  healthful  flow 
ers;  wear  them  for  the  sake  of  Giovanni  Guasconti." 

"  Thanks,  signer!"  replied  Beatrice,  with  her  rich  voice 
that  came  forth,  as  it  were,  like  a  gush  of  music  and  with  a 
mirthful  expression  half  childish  and  half  woman-like. 
"  I  accept  your  gift,  and  would  fain  recompense  it  with 
this  precious  purple  flower;  but  if  I  toss  it  into  the  air  it 
will  not  reach  you.  So  Signer  Guasconti  must  even  con 
tent  himself  with  my  thanks." 

She  lifted  the  bouquet  from  the  ground,  and  then,  as  if 
inwardly  ashamed  at  having  stepped  aside  from  her  maid 
enly  reserve  to  respond  to  a  stranger's  greeting,  passed 
swiftly  homeward  through  the  garden.  But,- few  as  the 
moments  were,  it  seemed  to  Giovanni,  when  she  was  on  the 
point  of  vanishing  beneath  the  sculptured  portal,  that  his 
beautiful  bouquet  was  already  beginning  to  wither  in  her 
grasp.  It  was  an  idle  thought;  there  could  be  no  possi 
bility  of  distinguishing  a  faded  flower  from  a  fresh  one  at 
so  great  a  distance. 

For  many  days  after  this  incident  the  young  man  avoided 
the  window  that  looked  into  Dr.  Ixappaccini's  garden  as 
if  something  ugly  and  monstrous  would  have  blasted  his 
eyesight  had  he  been  betrayed  into  a  glance.  lie  felt  con 
scious  of  having  put  himself,  to  a  certain  extent,  within 
the  influence  of  an  unintelligible  power  by  the  communica 
tion  which  he  had  opened  with  Beatrice.  The  wisest  course 
would  have  been,  if  his  heart  were  in  any  real  danger,  to 
quit  his  lodgings,  and  Padua  itself,  at  once;  the  next  wiser, 


RAP  PA  CCINPS  DA  UGHTER.  83 

to  have  accustomed  himself,  as  far  as  possible,  to  the  familiar 
and  daylight  view  of  Beatrice,  thus  bringing  her  rigidly 
and  systematically  within  the  limits  of  ordinary  experience. 
Least  of  all,  while  avoiding  her  sight,  should  Giovanni  have 
remained  so  near  this  extraordinary  being  that  the  prox 
imity,  and  possibility  even  of  intercourse,  should  give  a 
kind  of  substance  and  reality  to  the  wild  vagaries  which 
his  imagination  ran  riot  continually  in  producing.  Guas- 
conti  had  not  a  deep  heart — or,  at  all  events,  its  depths 
were  not  sounded  now — but  he  had  a  quick  fancy  and  an 
ardent  southern  temperament  which  rose  every  instant  to  a 
higher  fever-pitch.  Whether  or  no  Beatrice  possessed 
those  terrible  attributes — that  fatal  breath,  the  aflinity  with 
those  so  beautiful  and  deadly  flowers — which  were  indi 
cated  by  what  Giovanni  had  witnessed,  she  had  at  least 
instilled  a  tierce  and  subtle  poison  into  his  system.  It  was 
not  love,  although  her  rich  beauty  was  a  madness  to  him; 
nor  horror,  even  while  he  fancied  her  spirit  to  be  imbued 
with  the  same  baneful  essence  that  seemed  to  pervade  her 
physical  frame,  but  a  wild  offspring  of  both  love  and  hor 
ror  that  had  each  parent  in  it  and  burned  like  one  and 
shivered  like  the  other.  Giovanni  knew  not  what  to 
dread;  still  less  did  he  know  what  to  hope;  yet  hope  and 
dread  kept  a  continual  warfare  in  his  breast,  alternately 
vanquishing  one  another  and  starting  up  afresh  to  renew 
the  contest.  'Blessed  are  all  simple  emotions,  be  they 
dark  or  bright!  It  is  the  lurid  intermixture  of  the 
two  that  produces  the  illuminating  blaze  of  the  infernal 
regions. 

Sometimes  he  endeavored  to  assuage  the  fever  of  his 
spirit  by  a  rapid  walk  through  the  streets  of  Padua  or  be 
yond  its  gates;  his  footsteps  kept  time  with  the  throbbings 
of  his  brain,  so  that  the  walk  was  apt  to  accelerate  itself 
to  a  race.  One  day  he  found  himself  arrested;  his  arm 
was  seized  by  a  portly  personage  who  had  turned  back  on 
recognizing  the  young  man  and  expended  much  breath  in 
overtaking  him. 

"  Signer  Giovanni  !  Stay,  my  young  friend  !  "  cried  he. 
"  Have  you  forgotten  me?  That  might  well  be  the  case  if 
I  were  as  much  altered  as  yourself." 

It  was  Baglioni,  whom  Giovanni  had  avoided  ever  since 
their  first  meeting  from  a  doubt  that  the  professor's  sa 
gacity  would  look  too  deeply  into  his  secrets.  Endeavor- 


84  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

ing  to  recover  himself,  he  started  forth  wildly  from  his 
inner  world  into  the  outer  one,  and  spoke  like  a  man  in  a 
dream: 

"  Yes,  I  am  Giovanni  Guasconti.  You  are  Prof.  Pietro 
Baglioni.  Now  let  me  pass." 

"  Not  yet — not  yet.  Signer  Giovanni  Guasconti,"  said 
the  professor,  smiling,  but  at  the  same  time  scrutinizing 
the  youth  with  an  earnest  glance.  "  What?  Did  I  grow 
np  side  by  side  with  your  father  and  shall  his  son  pass 
me  like  a  stranger  in  these  old  streets  of  Padua?  Stand 
still,  Signer  Giovanni,  for  we  must  have  a  word  or  two  be 
fore  we  part." 

"  Speedily,  then,  most  worshipful  professor,  speedily!" 
said  Giovanni,  with  feverish  impatience.  "  Does  not 
Your  Worship  see  that  I  am  in  haste?" 

Now,  while  he  was  speaking,  there  came  a  man  in  black 
along  the  street,  stooping  and  moving  feebly  like  a  person 
in  inferior  health.  His  face  was  all  overspread  with  a 
most  sickly  and  sallow  hue,  but  yet  so  pervaded  with  an 
expression  of  piercing  and  active  intellect  that  an  observer 
might  easily  have  overlooked  the  merely  physical  attri 
butes,  and  have  seen  only  this  wonderful  energy.  As  he 
passed,  this  person  exchanged  a  cold  and  distant  saluta 
tion  with  Baglioni,  but  fixed  his  eyes  upon  Giovanni  with 
an  iutentness  that  seemed  to  bring  out  whatever  was 
within  him  worthy  of  notice.  Nevertheless,  there  was  a 
peculiar  quietness  in  the  look,  as  if  taking  merely  a  specu 
lative,  not  a  human,  interest  in  the  young  man. 

"  It  is  Dr.  Kappaccini,"  whispered  the  professor,  when 
the  stranger  had  passed.  *'  lias  he  ever  seen  your  face 
before?" 

"  He  has  seen  you!  He  must  have  seen  you! "  said  Ba 
glioni,  hastily.  "  For  some  purpose  or  other,  this  man  of 
science  is  making  a  study  of  yon.  I  know  that  look  of 
his;  it  is  the  same  that  coldly  illuminates  his  face  as  he 
bends  over  a  bird,  a  mouse  or  a  butterfly,  which,  in  pur 
suit  of  some  experiment  he  has  killed  by  the  perfume  of  a 
flower;  a  look  as  deep  as  nature  itself,  but  without  nature's 
warmth  of  love.  Signer  Giovanni,  I  will  stake  my  life 
upon  it,  you  are  the  subject  of  one  of  Rappaocinifl  ex 
periments'." 

"  Will  you  make  a  fool  of  me?  "  cried  Giovanni,  passion 
ately.  '•'  That,  Signer  Professor,  were  an  untoward  experi 
ment," 


RAPPACC1N1  '£  DA  UGHTER.  85 

"  Patience,  patience  ! "  replied  the  imperturbable  pro 
fessor.  "  I  tell  thce,  my  poor  Giovanni,  that  Ruppticcini 
has  a  scientific  interest  in  thee.  Thou  hast  fallen  into 
fearful  hands.  And  the  Signora  Beatrice — what  part  does 
she  act  in  this  mystery?" 

But  Giiasconti,  finding  Baglioni's  pertinacity  intolerable, 
here  broke  away  and  was  gone  before  the  professor  could 
again  seize  his  arm.  lie  looked  after  the  young  man  in 
tently  and  shook  his  head. 

"This  must  not  be/' said  Baglioni  to  himself.  "The 
youth  is  the  son  of  my  old  friend  and  shall  not  come  to 
any  harm  from  which  the  arcana  of  medical  science  can 
preserve  him.  Besides,  it  is  too  insufferable  an  imperti 
nence  in  Kappaccini  thus  to  snatch  the  lad  out  of  my  own 
hands,  as  I  may  say,  and  make  use  of  him  for  his  infernal 
experiments.  This  daughter  of  his!  It  shall  be  looked  to. 
Perchunce,  most  learned  liappaccini,  I  may  foil  you  where 
you  little  dream  of  it  !  " 

Meanwhile,  Giovanni  had  pursued  a  circuitous  route  and 
at  length  found  himself  at  the  door  of  his  lodgings.  As 
he  crossed  the  threshold  he  was  met  by  old  Lisabetta,  who 
smirked  and  smiled  and  was  evidently  desirous  to  attract 
his  attention — vainly,  however,  as  the  ebullition  of  his 
feelings  had  momentarily  subsided  into  a  cold  and  dull 
vacuity,  lie  turned  his  eyes  full  upon  the  withered  face 
that  was  puckering  itself  into  a  smile,  but  seemed  to  be 
hold  it  not.  The  old  dame,  therefore,  laid  her  grasp  upon 
his  cloak. 

"Signer,  signor!"  whispered  she,  still  with  a  smile 
over  the  whole  breadth  of  her  visage,  so  that  it  looked  not 
unlike  a  grotesque  carving  in  wood,  darkened  by  centuries. 
"  Listen,  signor  I  There  is  a  private  entrance  into  the 
garden." 

"What  do  you  say?''  exclaimed  Giovanni,  turning 
quickly  about,  as  if  an  inanimate  thing  should  start  into 
feverish  lifec  "  A  private  entrance  into  Dr.  Ivappacini's 
garden?  " 

"'Hush,  hush  !  Not  so  loud  I"  whispered  Lisabetta,  put 
ting  her  hand  over  his  mouth.  "  Yes,  into  the  worshipful 
doctor's  garden,  where  you  may  see  all  his  fine  shrubbery. 
Many  a  young  man  in  Padua  would  give  gold  to  be  ad 
mitted  among  those  flowers." 

Giovanni  put  a  piece  of  gold  into  her  hand. 


80  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"Show  me  the  way/"  said  he. 

A  surmise,  probably  excited  by  his  conversation  with 
Baglioni,  crossed  his  mind  that  this  interposition  of  old 
Lisabetta  might  perchance  be  connected  with  the  intrigue, 
whatever  were  its  nature,  in  which  the  professor  seemed 
to  suppose  that  Dr.  Kappaccini  was  involving  him.  But 
such  a  suspicion,  though  it  disturbed  Giovanni,  was  inade 
quate  to  restrain  him.  The  instant  he  was  aware  of  the 
possibility  of  approaching  Beatrice,  it  seemed  an  absolute 
necessity  of  his  existence  to  do  so.  It  mattered  not 
whether  she  were  an  angel  or  demon;  he  was  irrevocably 
within  her  sphere  and  must  obey  the  law  that  whirled  him 
onward  in  ever  lessening  circles  toward  a  result  which  he 
did  not  attempt  to  foreshadow.  And  yet,  strange  to  say, 
there  came  across  him  a  sudden  doubt  whether  this  in 
tense  interest  on  his  part  were  not  delusory,  whether  it 
were  really  of  so  deep  and  positive  a  nature  as  to  justify 
him  in  now  thrusting  himself  into  an  incalculable  position, 
whether  it  were  not  merely  the  fantasy  of  a  young  man's 
brain  only  slightly  or  not  at  all  connected  with  his 
heart. 

He  paused,  hesitated,  turned  half  about,  but  again  went 
on.  His  withered  guide  led  him  along  several  obscure 
passages  and  finally  undid  a  door  through  which,  as  it  was 
opened,  there  came  the  sight  and  sound  of  rustling  leaves 
with  the  broken  sunshine  glimmering  among  them.  Gio 
vanni  stepped  forth,  and,  forcing  himself  through  the  en 
tanglement  of  a  shrub  that  wreathed  its  tendrils  over  the 
hidden  entrance,  he  stood  beneath  his  own  window,  in  the 
open  area  of  Dr.  Eappaccini'e  garden. 

How  often  is  it  the  case  that  when  impossibilities  have 
come  to  pass  and  dreams  have  condensed  their  misty  sub 
stance  into  tangible  realities,  we  find  ourselves  calm  and 
even  coldly  self-possessed,  amid  circumstances  which  it 
would  have  been  a  delirium  of  joy  or  agony  to  anticipate! 
Fate  delights  to  thwart  us  thus.  Passion  will  choose  his 
own  time  to  rush  upon  the  scene  and  lingers  sluggishly  be 
hind  when  an  appropriate  adjustment  of  events  would  seem 
to  summon  his  appearance.  So  was  it  now  with  Giovanni. 
Day  after  day  his  pulse  had  throbbed  with  feverish  blood 
at  the  improbable  idea  of  an  interview  with  Beatrice  and 
of  standing  with  her  face  to  face  in  this  very  garden,  bask 
ing  in  the  Oriental  sunshine  of  her  beauty  and  snatching 


EAPPA  CCINI  'S  DA  UOHTER.  87 

from  her  full  gaze  the  mystery  which  he  deemed  the  riddle 
of  his  own  existence.  But  now  there  was  a  singular  and 
untimely  equanimity  within  his  breast.  He  threw  a  glance 
around  the  garden  to  discover  if  Beatrice  or  her  father  were 
present,  and,  perceiving  that  he  was  alone,  began  a  critical 
observation  of  the  plants. 

The  aspect  of  one  and  all  of  them  dissatisfied  him;  their 
gorgeousness  seemed  fierce,  passionate  and  even  unnatural. 
There  was  hardly  an  individual  shrub  which  a  wanderer 
straying  by  himself  through  a  forest  would  not  have  been 
startled  to  find  growing  wild,  as  if  an  unearthly  face  had 
glared  at  him  out  of  the  thicket.  Several,  also,  would  have 
shocked  a  delicate  instinct  by  an  appearance  of  artificial- 
ness,  indicating  that  there  had  been  such  commixture,  and,, 
as  it  were,  adultery,  of  various  vegetable  species  that  the 
production  was  no  longer  of  God's  making,  but  the  mon 
strous  offspring  of  man's  depraved  fancy,  glowing  with  only 
an  evil  mockery  of  beauty.  They  were  probably  the  result 
of  experiment,  which  in  one  or  two  cases  had  succeeded  in 
mingling  plants  individually  lovely  into  a  compound  pos 
sessing  the  questionable  and  ominous  character  that  distin 
guished  the  whole  growth  of  the  garden.  In  fine,  Giovanni 
recognized  but  two  or  three  plants  in  the  collection  and 
those  of  a  kind  that  he  well  knew  to  be  poisonous.  While 
busy  with  these  contemplations  he  heard  the  rustling  of  a 
silken  garment,  and,  turning,  beheld  Beatrice  emerging 
from  beneath  the  sculptured  portal. 

Giovanni  had  not  considered  with  himself  what  should  be 
his  deportment,  whether  he  should  apologize  for  his  intru 
sion  into  the  garden  or  assume  that  he  was  there  with  the 
privity  at  least,  if  not  by  the  desire,  of  Dr.  liappaccini  or 
his  daughter.  But  Beatrice's  manner  placed  him  at  his 
ease,  though  leaving  him  still  in  doubt  by  what  agency  he 
had  gained  admittance.  IShe  came  lightly  along  "the  path 
and  met  him  near  the  broken  fountain.  There  was  sur 
prise  in  her  face,  but  brightened  by  a  simple  and  kind  ex 
pression  of  pleasure. 

"  You  area  connoisseur  in  flowers,  sign  or,"  said  Beatrice, 
with  a  smile,  alluding  to  the  bouquet  which  he  had  flung 
her  from  the  window;  "it  is  no  marvel,  therefore,  if  the 
sight  of  my  father's  rare  collection  has  tempted  you  to  take 
a  nearer  view.  If  he  were  here  ho  could  tell  you  many 
strange  and  interesting  facts  as  to  the  nature  and  habits  of 


88  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

these  shrubs,  for  he  has  spent  a  life-time  in  such  studies  and 
this  garden  is  his  world." 

"And  yourself,  lady?"  observed  Giovanni.  "If  fame 
says  true  you  likewise  are  deeply  skilled  in  the  virtues  in 
dicated  by  these  rich  blossoms  and  these  spicy  perfumes. 
Would  you  deign  to  be  my  instructress,  I  should  prove  an 
apter  scholar  than  under  Signer  Rappaccini  himself." 

"Are  there  such  idle  rumors?"  asked  Beatrice,  with  the 
music  of  a  pleasant  laugh.  "  Do  people  say  that  I  am 
skilled  in  my  father's  science  of  plants?  What  a  jest  is 
there!  No;  though  I  have  grown  up  among  these  flowers, 
I  know  no  more  of  them  than  their  hues  and  perfume  and 
sometimes  methiuks  I  would  fain  rid  myself  of  even  that 
small  knowledge.  There  are  many  flowers  here — and  those 
not  the  least  brilliant — that  shock  and  offend  me  when 
they  meet  my  eye.  But  pray,  signer,  do  not  believe  these 
stories  about  my  science;  believe  nothing  of  me  save  what 
you  see  with  your  own  eyes." 

"  And  must  I  believe  all  that  I  have  seen  with  my  own 
eyes?"  asked  Giovanni,  pointedly,  while  the  recollection  of 
former  scenes  made  him  shrink.  "No,  signora,  you  de 
mand  too  little  of  me.  Bid  me  believe  nothing  save  what 
comes  from  your  own  lips." 

It  would  appear  that  Beatrice  understood  him.  There 
came  a  deep  flush  to  her  cheek,  but  she  looked  full  into 
Giovanni's  eyes  and  responded  to  his  gaze  of  uneasy  sus 
picion  with  a  queen-like  haughtiness. 

"  I  do  so  bid  you,  signor,"  she  replied.  "  Forget  what- 
ever  you  may  have  fancied  in  regard  to  me;  if  true  to  the 
outward  senses,  still  it  may  be  false  in  its  essence.  But  the 
words  of  Beatrice  Rappaccini's  lips  are  true  from  the  heart 
outward;  those  you  may  believe." 

A  fervor  glowed  in  her  whole  aspect  and  beamed  upon 
Giovanni's  consciousness  like  the  light  of  truth  itself.  But 
while  she  spoke  there  was  a  fragrance  in  the  atmosphere 
around  her,  rich  and  delightful,  though  evanescent,  yet 
which  the  young  man,  from  an  indefinable  reluctance, 
scarcely  dared  to  draw  into  his  lungs.  It  might  be  the 
odor  of  the  flowers.  Could  it  be  Beatrice's  breath  which 
thus  embalmed  her  words  with  a  strange  richness,  as  if  by 
steeping  them  in  her  heart?  A  faintness  passed  like  a 
shadow  over  Giovanni,  and  flitted  away;  he  seemed  to  gaze 
through  the  beautiful  girl's  eyes  into  her  transparent  soul, 
and  felt  no  more  doubt  or  fear. 


RAP  PA  COIN  PS  DA  TIGHTER.  89 

The  tinge  of  passion  that  had  colored  Beatrice's  manner 
vanished;  she  became  gay  and  appeared  to  derive  a  pure 
delight  from  her  communion  with  the  youth,  not  unlike 
what  the  maiden  of  a  lonely  island  might  have  felt  con 
versing  with  a  voyager  from  the  civilized  world.  Evidently 
her  experience  of  life  had  been  confined  within  the  limits 
of  that  garden.  She  talked  now  about  matters  as  simple 
as  the  daylight  or  summer  clouds,  and  now  asked  questions 
in  reference  to  the  city  or  Giovanni's  distant  home,  his 
friends,  his  mother  and  his  sisters — questions  indicating 
such  seclusion  and  such  lack  of  familiarity  with  modes  and 
forms  that  Giovanni  responded  as  if  to  an  infant.  Her 
spirit  gushed  out  before  him  like  a  fresh  rill  that  was  just 
catching  its  first  glimpse  of  the  sunlight  and  wondering  at 
the  reflections  of  earth  and  sky  which  were  flung  into  its 
bosom.  There  came  thoughts,  too,  from  a  deep  source, 
and  fantasies  of  gem-like  brilliancy,  as  if  diamonds  and 
rubies  sparkled  upward  among  the  bubbles  of  the  fountain. 
Ever  and  anon  there  gleamed  across  the  young  man's  mind 
a  sense  of  wonder  that  he  should  be  walking  side  by  side 
with  the  being  who  had  so  wrought  upon  his  imagination, 
whom  he  had  idealized  in  such  hues  of  terror,  in  whom  he 
had  positively  witnessed  such  manifestations  of  dreadful 
attributes — that  he  should  be  conversing  with  Beatrice  like 
a  brother,  and  should  find  her  so  human  and  so  maiden 
like.  But  such  reflections  were  only  momentary;  the  effect 
of  her  character  was  too  real  not  to  make  itself  familiar  at 
once. 

In  this  free  intercourse  they  had  strayed  through  the 
garden,  and  now,  after  many  turns  through  its  avenues, 
were  come  to  the  shattered  fountain  beside  which  grew  the 
magnificent  shrub  with  its  treasury  of  glowing  blossoms. 
A  fragrance  was  diffused  from  it  which  Giovanni  recog 
nized  as  identical  with  that  which  he  had  attributed  to 
Beatrice's  breath,  but  incomparably  more  powerful.  As 
her  eyes  fell  upon  it  Giovanni  beheld  her  press  her  hand  to 
her  bosom,  as  if  her  heart  were  throbbing  suddenly  and 
painfully. 

"For  the  first  time  in  my  life,"  murmured  she,  address 
ing  the  shrub,  "  I  had  forgotten  thee." 

"I  remember,  signora,"  said  Giovanni,  "  that  you  once 
promised  to  reward  me  with  one  of  these  living  gems  for 
the  bouquet  which  I  had  the  happy  boldness  to  fling  to 


90  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

your  feet.     Permit  me  to  now  pluck  it  as  a  memorial  of 
this  interview/' 

He  made  a  step  toward  the  shrub  with  extended  hand. 
But  Beatrice  darted  forward,  uttering  a  shriek  that  went 
through  his  heard  like  a  dagger.  She  caught  his  hand 
and  drew  it  back  with  the  whole  force  of  her  slender 
figure.  Giovanni  felt  her  touch  thrilling  through  his 
fibers. 

"  Touch  it  not/'  exclaimed  she,  in  a  voice  of  agony — 
"  not  for  thy  life!  It  is  fatal." 

Then,  hiding  her  face,  she  fled  from  him  and  vanished 
beneath  the  sculptured  portal.  As  Giovanni  followed  her 
with  his  eyes  he  beheld  the  emaciated  figure  and  pale  in 
telligence  of  Dr.  Rappaccini,  who  had  been  watching  the 
scene,  he  knew  not  how  long,  within  the  shadow  of  the 
entrance. 

/  No  sooner  was  Guasconti  alone  in  his  chamber  than  the 
'image  of  Beatrice  came  back  to  his  passionate  musings  in 
vested  with  all  the  witchery  that  had  been  gathering  around 
it  ever  since  his  first  glimpse  of  her,  and  now  likewise  im- 
bued  with  a  tender  warmth  of  girlish  womanhood.  She 
was  human;  her  nature  was  endowed  with  all  gentle  and 
feminine  qualities;  she  was  worthiest  to  be  worshiped;  she 
was  capable,  surely,  on  her  part,  of  the  height  and  heroism 
of  love.  Those  tokens  which  he  had  hitherto  considered 
as  proofs  of  a  frightful  peculiarity  in  her  physical  and 
moral  system  were  now  either  forgotten  or  by  the  subtle 
sophistry  of  passion  transmuted  into  a  golden  crown  of 
enchantment,  rendering  Beatrice  the  more  admirable  by 
so  much  as  she  was  the  more  unique.  Whatever  had 
looked  ugly  was  now  beautiful;  or  if  incapable  of  such  a 
change,  it  stole  away  and  hid  itself  among  those  shapeless 
half  ideas  which  throng  the  dim  region  beyond  the  day 
light  of  our  perfect  consciousness. 

Thus  did  Giovanni  spend  the  night,  nor  fall  asleep  until 
the  dawn  had  begun  to  awake  the  slumbering  flowers  in 
Dr.  Rappaccini's  garden,  whither  his  dreams  doubtless  led 
him.  Up  rose  the  sun  in  his  due  season,  and,  flinging 
his  beams  upon  the  young  man's  eyelids,  awoke  him  to 
a  sense  of  pain.  When  thoroughly  aroused,  he  became 
sensible  of  a  burning  and  tingling  agony  in  his  hand,  in 
his  right  hand — the  very  hand  which  Beatrice  had  grasped 
in  her  own  when  he  was  on  the  point  of  plucking  one  of 


RAPPACCINVS  DA  UGHTER.  01 

the  gem-like  flowers.  On  the  back  of  that  hand  there  was 
now  a  purple  print  like  that  of  four  small  fingers,  and  the 
likeness  of  a  slender  thumb  upon  his  wrist.  Oh,  how 
stubbornly  does  love,  or  even  that  cunning  semblance  of 
love  which  flourishes  in  the  imagination,  but  strikes  no 
depth  of  root  into  the  heart — how  stubbornly  does  it 
hold  its  faith  until  the  moment  comes  when  it  is  doomed 
to  vanish  into  thin  mist!  Giovanni  wrapped  a  handker 
chief  about  his  hand  and  wondered  what  evil  thing  had 
stung  him,  and  soon  forgot  his  pain  in  a  reverie  of 
Beatrice. 

After  the  first  interview,  a  second  was  in  the  inevitable 
course  of  what  we  call  fate.  A  third,  fourth,  and  a  meet 
ing  with  Beatrice  in  the  garden  was  no  longer  an  incident 
in  Giovanni's  daily  life,  but  the  whole  space  in  which  he 
might  be  said  to  live,  for  the  anticipation  and  memory  of 
that  ecstatic  hour  made  up  the  remainder.  Nor  was  it 
otherwise  with  the  daughter  of  Rappaccini.  She  watched 
for  the  youth's  appearance,  and  flew  to  his  side  with  con 
fidence  as  unreserved  as  if  they  had  been  playmates  from 
early  infancy — as  if  they  were  such  playmates  still.  If 
by  any  unwonted  chance  he  failed  to  come  at  the  ap 
pointed  moment,  she  stood  beneath  the  window  and  sent 
up  the  rich  sweetness  of  her  tones  to  float  around  him  in 
his  chamber  and  echo  and  reverberate  throughout  his 
heart:  "  Giovanni,  Giovanni!  Why  tarriest  thou?  Come 
down!"  and  down  he  hastened  into  that  Eden  of  poisonous 
flowers. 

But  with  all  this  intimate  familiarity  there  was  still  a  re 
serve  in  Beatrice's  demeanor  so  rigidly  and  invariably  sus 
tained  that  the  idea  of  infringing  it  scarcely  occurred  to 
his  imagination.  By  all  appreciable  signs  they  loved — they 
had  looked  love  with  eyes  that  conveyed  the  holy  secret 
from  the  depths  of  one  soul  into  the  depths  of  the  other 
as  if  it  were  too  sacred  to  be  whispered  by  the  way;  they 
had  even  spoken  of  love  in  those  gushes  of  passion  when 
their  spirits  darted  forth  in  articulated  breath  like  tongues 
of  long-hidden  flame — and  yet  there  had  been  no  seal  of 
lips,  no  clasp  of  hands,  nor  any  slightest  caress  such  as 
love  claims  and  hallows.  He  had  never  touched  one  of 
the  gleaming  ringlets  of  her  hair;  her  garment — so  marked 
was  the  physical  barrier  between  them — had  never  been 
waved  against  him  by  a  breeze.  On  the  few  occasions 


92  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

when  Giovanni  had  seemed  tempted  to  overstep  the  limit 
Beatrice  grew  so  sad,  so  stern,  and,  withal,  wore  such  a 
look  of  desolate  separation  shuddering  at  itself  that  not  a 
spoken  word  was  requisite  to  repel  him.  At  such  times 
he  was  startled  at  the  horrible  suspicions  that  rose  mon 
ster-like  out  of  the  caverns  of  his  heart  and  stared  him. in 
the  face.  His  love  grew  thin  and  faint  as  the  morning 
mist;  his  doubts  alone  had  substance.  But  when  Bea 
trice's  face  brightened  again  after  the  momentary  shadow 
she  was  transformed  at  once  from  the  mysterious,  ques 
tionable  being  whom  he  had  watched  with  so  much  awe 
and  horror;  she  was  now  the  beautiful  and  unsophisticated 
girl  whom  he  felt  that  his  spirit  knew  with  a  certainty  be 
yond  all  other  knowledge. 

A  considerable  time  had  now  passed  since  Giovanni's 
last  meeting  with  Baglioni.  One  morning,  however,  he 
was  disagreeably  surprised  by  a  visit  from  the  professor, 
whom  he  had  scarcely  thought  of  for  whole  weeks  and 
would  willingly  have  forgotten  still  longer.  Given  up,  as 
he  had  long  been  to  a  pervading  excitement,  he  could 
tolerate  no  companions  except  upon  condition  of  their  per 
fect  sympathy  with  his  present  state  of  feeling;  such  sym 
pathy  was  not  to  be  expected  from  Prof.  Baglioni. 

The  visitor  chatted  carelessly  for  a  few  moments  about 
the  gossip  of  the  city  and  the  university  and  then  took  up 
another  topic. 

"  I  have  been  reading  an  old  classic  author  lately,"  said 
he,  "  and  met  with  a  story  that  stangely  interested  me. 
Possibly  you  may  remember  it.  It  is  of  an  Indian  prince 
who  sent  a  beautiful  woman  as  a  present  to  Alexander  the 
Great.  She  was  as  lovely  as  the  dawn  and  gorgeous  as  the 
sunset,  but  what  especially  distinguished  her  was  a  certain 
rich  perfume  in  her  breath,  richer  than  a  garden  of  Persian 
roses.  Alexander,  as  was  natural  to  a  youthful  conqueror, 
fell  in  love  at  first  sight  with  this  magnificent  stranger. 
But  a  certain  sage  physician  happening  to  be  present  dis 
covered  a  terrible  secret  in  regard  to  her." 

"  And  what  was  that?"  asked  Giovanni,  turning  his  eyes 
downward  to  avoid  those  of  the  professor. 

"That  this  lovely  woman,"  continued  Baglioni,  with 
emphasis,  "  had  been  nourished  with  poisons  from  her 
birth  upward  until  her  whole  nature  was  so  imbued  with 
them  that  she  herself  had  become  the  deadliest  poison  in 


RAPPACGINPS  DA  UGHTER.  93 

existence.  Poison  was  her  element  of  life.  With  that 
rich  perfume  of  her  breath  she  blasted  the  very  air.  Her 
love  would  have  been  poison — her  embrace,  death.  Is  not 
this  a  marvelous  tale?" 

"A  childish  fable/'  answered  Giovanni,  nervously  start 
ing  from  his  chair.  "  I  marvel  how  Your  Worship  finds 
time  to  read  such  nonsense  among  your  graver  studies. v 

"  By  the  bye,"  said  the  professor,  looking  uneasily  about 
him,  *'  what  singular  fragrance  is  this  in  your  apartment? 
Is  it  the  perfume  of  your  gloves?  It  is  faint,  but  delicious, 
and  yet,  after  all,  by  no  means  agreeble.  Were  I  to 
breathe  it  long  methinks  it  would  make  me  ill.  It  is 
like  the  breath  of  a  flower,  but  I  see  no  flowers  in  the 
chamber." 

"  Nor  are  there  any/'  replied  Giovanni,  who  had  turned 
pale  as  the  professor  spoke;  "nor,  I  think,  is  there  any 
fragrance  except  in  Your  Worship's  imagination.  Odors 
being  a  sort  of  element  combined  of  the  sensual  and  the 
spiritual  are  apt  to  deceive  us  in  this  manner.  The  recol 
lection  of  a  perfume — the  bare  idea  of  it — may  easily  be 
mistaken  for  a  present  reality." 

"  Ay,  but  my  sober  imagination  does  not  of  ten  play  such 
tricks,"  said  Baglioni;  "and  were  I  to  fancy  any  kind  of 
odor,  it  would  be  that  of  some  vile  apothecary-drug  where 
with  my  fingers  are  likely  enough  to  be  inbued.  Our  wor 
shipful  friend  Rappaccini,  as  I  have  heard,  tinctures  his 
medicaments  with  odors  richer  than  those  of  Araby. 
Doubtless,  likewise,  the  fair  and  learned  Signora  Beatrice 
would  minister  to  her  patients  with  draughts  as  sweet  as  a 
maiden's  breath,  but  woe  to  him  that  sips  them!" 

Giovanni's  face  evinced  many  contending  emotions.  The 
tone  in  which  the  professor  alluded  to  the  pure  and  lovely 
daughter  of  Rappaccini  was  a  torture  to  his  soul,  and  yet 
the  intimation  of  a  view  of  her  character  opposite  to  his 
own  gave  instantaneous  distinctness  to  a  thousand  dim  sus 
picions  which  now  grinned  at  him  like  so  many  demons. 
But  he  strove  hard  to  quell  them,  and  to  respond  to  Bag 
lioni  with  a  true  lover's  perfect  faith. 

"  Signer  Professor,"  said  he,  "  you  were  my  father's 
friend;  perchance,  too,  it  is  your  purpose  to  act  a  friendly 
part  toward  his  son.  I  would  fain  feel  nothing  toward  you 
save  respect  and  deference,  but  I  pray  you  to  observe,  sig- 
nor,  that  there  is  one  subject  on  which  we  must  not  speak. 


94  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

You  know  not  the  Signora  Beatrice;  you  cannot,  therefore, 
estimate  the  wrong — the  blasphem}',  I  may  even  say — that 
is  offered  to  her  character  by  a  light  or  injurious  word." 

"Giovanni!  my  poor  Giovanni!"  answered  the  professor, 
with  a  calm  expression  of  pity.  "  I  know  this  wretched 
girl  far  better  than  yourself.  You  shall  hear  the  truth  in 
respect  to  the  poisoner  Kappaccini  and  his  poisonous 
daughter — yes,  poisonous  as  she  is  beautiful.  Listen,  for 
even  should  you  do  violence  to  my  gray  hairs  it  shall  not 
silence  me.  That  old  fable  of  the  Indian  woman  has  be 
come  a  truth  by  the  deep  and  deadly  science  of  Kappaccini 
and  in  the  person  of  the  lovely  Beatrice." 

Giovanni  groaned  and  hid  his  face. 

"  Her  father,"  continued  Baglioni,  "  was  not  restrained 
by  natural  affection  from  offering  up  his  child  in  this  hor 
rible  manner  as  the  victim  of  his  insane  zeal  for  science. 
For — let  us  do  him  justice — he  is  as  true  a  man  of  science 
as  ever  distilled  his  own  heart  in  an  alembic.  What,  then, 
will  be  your  fate?  Beyond  a  doubt,  you  are  selected  as 
the  material  of  some  new  experiment.  Perhaps  the  result 
is  to  be  death — perhaps  a  fate  more  awful  still.  Rappac- 
cini,  with  what  he  calls  the  interest  of  science  before  his 
eyes,  will  hesitate  at  nothing." 

"  It  is  a  dream  !"  muttered  Giovanni  to  himself.  "Surely 
it  is  a  dream  !" 

"But,"  resumed  the  professor,  "be  of  good  cheer,  son 
of  my  friend!  It  is  not  yet  too  late  for  the  rescue.  Possibly 
we  may  even  succeed  in  bringing  back  this  miserable  child 
within  the  limits  of  ordinary  nature  from  which  her  father's 
madness  has  estranged  her.  Behold  this  little  silver  vase; 
it  was  wrought  by  the  hands  of  the  renewed  Benvenuto 
Cellini,  and  is  well  worthy  to  be  a  love-gift  to  the  fairest 
dame  in  Italy.  But  its  contents  are  invaluable.  One  little 
sip  of  this  antidote  would  have  rendered  the  most  virulent 
poisons  of  the  Borgias  innocuous;  doubt  not  that  it  will  be 
as  efficacious  against  those  of  Rappaccini.  Bestow  the 
vase  and  the  precious  liquid  within  it  on  your  Beatrice, 
and  hopefully  await  the  result." 

Baglioni  laid  a  small  exquisitely  wrought  silver  vial  on 
the  table  and  withdrew,  leaving  what  he  had  said  to  pro 
duce  its  effect  upon  the  young  man's  mind. 

"We  will  thwart  Kappacini  yet,"  thought  he  chuckling 
to  himself,  as  he  descended  the  stairs.  "  But  let  us  confess 


RAP  PA  COIN  I 'S  DA  TIGHTER.  05 

the  truth  of  him;  he  is  a  wonderful  man — a  wonderful  man 
indeed — a  vile  empiric,  however,  in  his  practice,  and 
therefore  not  to  be  tolerated  by  those  who  respect  the  good 
old  rules  of  the  medical  profession." 

Throughout  Giovanni's  whole  acquaintance  with  Beatrice 
he  had  occasionally,  as  we  have  said,  been  haunted  by  dark 
surmises  as  to  her  character  ;  yet  so  thoroughly  had  she 
made  herself  felt  by  him  as  a  simple,  natural,  most  affec 
tionate  and  guileless  creature  that  the  image  now  held  up 
by  Prof.  Baglioni  looked  as  strange  and  incredible  as 
if  it  were  not  in  accordance  with  his  own  original  concep 
tion.  True,  there  were  ugly  recollections  connected  with 
his  first  glimpses  of  the  beautiful  girl  ;  he  could  not  quite 
forget  the  bouquet  that  withered  in  her  grasp,  and  the  in 
sect  that  perished  amid  the  sunny  air  by  no  ostensible 
agency  save  the  fragrance  of  her  breath.  These  incidents, 
however,  dissolving  in  the  pure  light  of  her  character,  had 
no  longer  the  efficacy  of  facts,  but  were  acknowledged  as 
mistaken  fantasies,  by  whatever  testimony  of  the  senses 
they  might  appear  to  be  substantiated.  There  is  some 
thing  truer  and  more  real  than  what  we  can  see  with  the 
eyes  and  touch  with  the  finger.  On  such  better  evidence 
had  Giovanni  founded  his  confidence  in  Beatrice,  though 
rather  by  the  necessary  force  of  her  high  attributes  than 
by  any  deep  and  generous  faith  on  his  part.  But  now  his 
spirit  was  incapable  of  sustaining  itself  at  the  height  to 
which  the  early  enthusiasm  of  passion  had  exalted  it;  he  fell 
down  groveling  among  earthly  doubts,  and  defiled  there 
with  the  pure  whitness  of  Beatrice's  image.  Not  that  he 
gave  her  up,  he  did  but  distrust.  lie  resolved  to  institute 
some  decisive  test  that  should  satisfy  him  once  for  all 
whether  there  were  those  dreadful  peculiarities  in  her 
physical  nature  which  could  not  be  supposed  to  exist  with 
out  some  corresponding  monstrosity  of  soul.  His  eyes, 
gazing  down  afar,  might  have  deceived  him  as  to  the  lizard, 
the  insect  and  the  flowers  ;  but  if  he  could  witness  at  the 
distance  of  a  few  paces  the  sudden  blight  of  one  fresh  and 
healthful  flower  in  Beatrice's  hand,  there  would  be  room 
for  no  further  question.  With  this  idea  he  hastened  to  the 
florist's,  and  purchased  a  bouquet  that  was  still  gemmed 
with  the  morning  dew-drops. 

It  was  now  the  customary  hour  of  his  daily  interview 
with  Beatrice.  Before  descending  into  the  garden  Giovanni 


96  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

failed  not  to  look  at  his  figure  in  the  mirror — a  vanity  to 
be  expected  in  a  beautiful  young  man,  yet,  as  displaying 
itself  at  that  troubled  and  feverish  moment,  the  token  of  a 
certain  shallowness  of  feeling  and  insincerity  of  character. 
He  did  gaze,  however,  and  said  to  himself  that  his  features 
had  never  before  possessed  so  rich  a  grace,  nor  his  eyes 
such  vivacity,  nor  his  cheeks  so  warm  a  hue  of  superabund 
ant  life. 

"  At  least,"  thought  he,  "  her  poison  has  not  yet  insinu 
ated  itself  into  my  system.  I  am  no  flower,  to  perish  in 
her  grasp." 

With  that  thought  he  turned  his  eyes  on  the  bouquet, 
which  he  had  never  once  laid  aside  from  his  hand.  A  thrill 
of  indefinable  horror  shot  through  his  frame  on  perceiving 
that  those  dewy  flowers  were  already  beginning  to  droop  ; 
they  wore  the  aspect  of  things  that  had  been  fresh  and 
lovely  yesterday.  Giovanni  grew  white  as  marble  and  stood 
motionless  before  the  mirror,  staring  at  his  own  reflection 
there  as  at  the  likeness  of  something  frightful.  He  remem 
bered  Baglioni's  remark  about  the  fragrance  that  seemed 
to  pervade  the  chamber  ;  it  must  have  been  the  poison  in 
his  breath.  Then  he  shuddered — shuddered  at  himself. 
Eecovering  from  his  stupor,  he  began  to  watch  with  curious 
eye  a  spider  that  was  busily  at  work  hanging  its  web  from 
the  antique  cornice  of  the  apartment,  crossing  and  recross- 
ing  the  artful  system  of  interwoven  lines,  as  vigorous  and 
active  a  spider  as  ever  dangled  from  an  old  ceiling.  Gio 
vanni  bent  toward  the  insect  and  emitted  a  deep,  long 
breath.  The  spider  suddenly  ceased  its  toil  ;  the  web 
vibrated  with  a  tremor  originating  in  the  body  of  the  small 
artisan.  Again  Giovanni  sent  forth  a  breath,  deeper, 
longer  and  imbued  with  a  venomous  feeling  out  of  his 
heart ;  he  knew  not  whether  he  were  wicked  or  only 
desperate.  The  spider  made  a  convulsive  grip  with  his 
limbs,  and  hung  dead  across  the  window. 

"Accursed!  accursed!"  muttered  Giovanni,  addressing 
himself.  "  Hast  thou  grown  so  poisonous  that  this  deadly 
insect  perishes  by  thy  breath  ?" 

At  that  moment  a  rich,  sweet  voice  came  floating  up 
from  the  garden: 

"  Giovanni,  Giovanni!  It  is  past  the  hour.  Why  tar- 
riest  thou?  Come  down!" 

"Yes,"   muttered   Giovanni,    again;  "she  is   the  only 


RAFPACCLNPS  DA  UG1ITER.  97 

being  whom  my  breath  may  not  slay.  Would  that  it 
might!" 

He  rushed  down,  and  in  an  instant  was  standing  before 
the  bright  and  loving  eyes  of  Beatrice.  A  moment  ago  his 
wrath  and  despair  had  been  so  tierce  that  he  could  have  de 
sired  nothing  so  much  as  to  wither  her  by  a  glance,  but 
with  her  actual  presence  there  came  influences  which  had 
too  real  an  existence  to  be  at  once  shaken  oir — recollections 
of  the  delicate  and  benign  power  of  her  feminine  nature, 
which  had  so  often  enveloped  him  in  a  religious  calm; 
recollections  of  many  a  holy  and  passionate  outgush  of  her 
heart,  when  the  pure  fountain  mid  been  unsealed  from  its 
depths  and  made  visible  in  its  transparency  to  his  mental 
eye;  recollections  which,  had  Giovanni  known  how  to  esti 
mate  them,  would  have  assured  him  that  all  this  ugly  mys 
tery  was  but  an  earthly  illusion,  and  that,  whatever  mist 
of  evil  might  seem  to  have  gathered  over  her,  the  real 
Beatrice  was  a  heavenly  angel.  Incapable  as  lie  was  of 
such  high  faith,  still  her  presence  had  not  utterly  lost  its 
magic.  Giovanni's  rage  was  quelled  into  an  aspect  of  sul 
len  insensibility.  Beatrice,  with  a  quick,  spiritual  sense, 
immediately  felt  that  there  was  a  gulf  of  blackness  between 
them  which  neither  he  nor  she  could  pass.  They  walked 
on  together,  sad  and  silent,  and  came  thus  to  the  marble 
fountain,  and  to  its  pool  of  water  on  the  ground,  in  the 
midst  of  which  grew  the  shrub  that  bore  gem-like  blos 
soms.  Giovanni  was  affrighted  at  the  eager  enjoyment — 
the  appetite,  as  it  were — with  which  he  found  himself  in 
haling  the  fragrance  of  the  flowers. 

"Beatrice,"  asked  he,  abruptly,  "  whence  came  this 
shrub?" 

"  My  father  created  it,"  answered  she,  with  simplicity. 

"Created  it!  created  it!"  repeated  Giovanni.  "What 
mean  you,  Beatrice?" 

"  He  is  a  man  fearfully  acquainted  with  the  secrets  of 
nature,"  replied  Beatrice,  "  and  at  the  hour  when  I  first 
drew  breath  this  plant  sprung  from  the  soil,  the  offspring 
of  his  science,  of  his  intellect,  while  I  was  but  his  earthly 
child.  Approach  it  not,"  continued  she,  observing  with 
terror  that  Giovanni  was  drawing  nearer  to  the  shrub;  "it 
has  qualities  that  you  little  dream  of.  But  I,  dearest  Gio 
vanni — I  grew  up  and  blossomed  with  the  plant  and  was 
nourished  with  its  breath.  It  was  my  sister,  and  I  loved 


98  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

it  with  a  human  affection,  for,  alas!  hast  thou  not  sus 
pected  it? — there  was  an  awful  doom." 

Here  Giovanni  frowned  so  darkly  upon  her  that  Beatrice 
paused  and  trembled.  But  her  faith  in  his  tenderness  re 
assured  her  and  made  her  blush  that  she  had  doubted  for 
an  instant. 

"There  was  an  awful  doom,"  she  continued — "the 
effect  of  my  father's  fatal  love  of  science — which  estranged 
me  from  all  society  of  my  kind.  Until  heaven  sent  thee, 
dearest  Giovanni,  oh,  how  lonely  was  thy  poor  Beatrice!" 

"  AVas  it  a  hard  doom?"  asked  Giovanni,  fixing  his  eyes 
upon  her. 

"  Only  of  late  have  I  known  how  hard  it  was,"  answered 
she,  tenderly.  "  Oh,  yes;  but  my  heart  was  torpid  and 
therefore  quiet." 

Giovanni's  rage  broke  forth  from  his  sullen  gloom  like  a 
lightning-flash  out  of  a  dark  cloud. 

"Accursed  one!"  cried  he,  with  venomous  scorn  and 
anger.  "And,  finding  thy  solitude  wearisome,  thou  hast 
severed  me,  likewise,  from  all  the  warmth  of  life  and  en 
ticed  me  into  thy  region  of  unspeakable  horror." 

"Giovanni!"  exclaimed  Beatrice,  turning  her  large,  bright 
eyes  upon  his  face.  The  force  of  his  words  had  not  found 
its  way  into  her  mind;  she  was  merely  thunderstruck. 

"  Yes  poisonous  thing  !"  repeated  Giovanni,  beside  him 
self  with  passion.  "Thou  hast  done  it !  Thou  hast  blasted 
me  !  Thou  hast  filled  my  veins  with  poison  !  Thou  hast 
made  me  as  hateful,  as  ugly,  as  loathsome  and  deadly  a 
creature  as  thyself — a  world's  wonder  of  hideous  mon 
strosity  !  Now — if  our  breath  be,  happily,  as  fatal  to  our 
selves  as  to  all  others — let  us  join  our  lips  in  one  kiss  of 
unutterable  hatred,  and  so  die." 

"What  has  befallen  me?"  murmured  Beatrice,  with  a 
low  moan  out  of  her  heart.  "Holy  Virgin,  pity  me — a 
poor  heart-broken  child  !" 

"Thou?  Dost  thou  pray?"  cried  Giovanni,  still  with 
the  same  fiendish  scorn.  "  The  very  prayers  as  they  come 
from  thy  lips  taint  the  atmosphere  with  death.  Yes,  let 
us  pray  !  Let  us  to  church  and  dip  our  fingers  in  the  holy 
water  at  the  portal  ;  they  that  come  after  us  will  perish  as 
by  a  pestilence.  Let  us  sign  crosses  in  the  jiir  ;  it  will  be 
scattering  curses  abroad  in  the  likeness  of  holy  symbols." 

"  Giovanni,"  said  Beatrice  calmly,  for  her  grief  was  be- 


RAPPACCINPS  DA  UGHTER.  99 

yond  passion,  ' '  why  dost  thou  join  thyself  with  me  thus  in 
those  terrible  words  ?  I,  it  is  true,  am  the  horrible  thing 
thou  namest  me,  but  thou — what  hast  thou  to  do  save 
with  one  other  shudder  at  my  hideous  misery  to  go  forth 
out  of  the  garden  and  mingle  with  thy  race,  and  forget 
that  there  ever  crawled  on  earth  such  a  monster  as  poor 
Beatrice  ?" 

"  Dost  thou  pretend  ignorance  ?"  asked  Giovanni,  scowl 
ing  upon  her.  "Behold!  This  power  have  I  gained  from 
the  pure  daughter  of  Rappaccini  I" 

There  was  a  swarm  of  summer  insects  flitting  through 
the  air  in  search  of  the  food  promised  by  the  flower-odors 
of  the  fatal  garden.  They  circled  round  Giovanni's  head, 
and  was  evidently  attracted  toward  him  by  the  same  in 
fluence  which  had  drawn  them  for  an  instant  within  the 
sphere  of  several  of  the  shrubs.  lie  sent  forth  a  breath 
among  them,  and  smiled  bitterly  at  Beatrice  as  at  least  a 
score  of  the  insects  fell  dead  upon  the  ground. 

"  I  see  it  !"  I  see  it  !"  shrieked  Beatrice.  "  It  is  my 
fathers'  fatal  science  !  No,  no,  Giovanni,  it  was  not  I  ! 
Never,  never  !  I  dreamed  only  to  love  thee  and  be  with 
thee  a  little  time,  and  so  to  let  thee  pass  away,  leaving  but 
thine  image  in  mine  heart.  For,  Giovanni — believe  it — 
though  my  body  be  nourished  with  poison,  my  spiiit  is 
God's  creature  and  craves  love  as  its  daily  food.  But  my 
father  !  he  has  united  us  in  this  fearful  sympathy.  Yes, 
spurn  me  !  tread  upon  me  !  kill  me  !  Oh,  what  is  death, 
after  such  words  as  thine  ?  But  it  was  not  I ;  not  for  a 
world  of  bliss  would  I  have  done  it !" 

Giovanni's  passion  had  exhausted  itself  in  its  outburst 
from  his  lips.  There  now  came  across  him  a  sense — mourn 
ful  and  not  without  tenderness — of  the  intimate  and  pecul 
iar  relationship  between  Beatrice  and  himself.  They 
stood,  as  it  were,  in  an  utter  solitude  which  would  be  made 
none  the  less  solitary  by  the  densest  throng  of  human  life. 
Ought  not,  then,  the  desert  of  humanity  around  them  to 
press  this  insulated  pair  closely  together  ?  If  they  should 
be  cruel  to  one  another,  who  was  there  to  be  kind  to  them? 
Besides,  thought  Giovanni,  might  there  not  still  be  a  hope 
of  his  returning,  within  the  limits  of  ordinary  nature,  and 
leading  Beatrice — the  redeemed  Beatrice — by  the  hand  ? 
Oh,  weak  and  selfish  and  unworthy  spirit,  that  could 
dream  of  an  earthly  union  and  earthly  happiness  as  pos- 


100  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSK. 

sible  after  such  deep  love  had  been  so  bitterly  wronged  as 
was  Beatrice's  love  by  Giovanni's  blighting  words  !  No  ! 
no  !  there  could  be  no  such  hope.  She  must  pass  heavily 
with  that  broken  heart  across  the  borders ;  she  must  bathe 
her  hurts  in  some  fount  of  Paradise  and  forgot  her  grief  in 
the  light  of  immortality,,  and  there  be  well. 

But  Giovanni  did  not  know  it. 

"  Dear  Beatrice,"  said  he,  approaching  her,  while  she 
shrank  away,  as  always  at  his  approach,  but  now  with  a 
different  impulse — "  dearest  Beatrice,  our  fate  is  not  yet 
so  desperate.  Behold!  There  is  a  medicine,  potent,  as  a 
wise  physician  has  assured  me,  and  almost  divine  in  its 
efficacy.  It  is  composed  of  ingredients  the  most  opposite 
to  those  by  which  thy  awful  father  has  brought  this  ca 
lamity  upon  thee  and  me.  It  is  distilled  of  blessed  herbs. 
Shall  we  not  quaff  it  together  and  thus  be  purified  from 
evil?" 

"  Give  it  me,"  said  Beatrice,  extending  her  hand  to  re 
ceive  the  little  silver  vial  which  Giovanni  took  from  his 
bosom.  She  added,  with  a  peculiar  emphasis:  "I  will 
drink,  but  do  thou  await  the  result." 

She  put  Baglioni's  antidote  to  her  lips,  and  at  the  same 
moment  the  figure  of  Pappaccini  emerged  from  the  portal 
and  came  slowly  toward  the  marble  fountain.  As  he  drew 
near  the  pale  man  of  science  seemed  to  gaze  with  a  tri 
umphant  expression  at  the  beautiful  youth  and  maiden,  as 
might  an  artist  who  should  spend  his  life  in  achieving  a 
picture  or  a  group  of  statuary  and  finally  be  satisfied  with 
his  success.  He  paused;  his  bent  form  grew  erect  with 
conscious  power;  he  spread  out  his  hand  over  them  in  the 
attitude  of  a  father  imploring  a  blessing  upon  his  children. 
But  those  were  the  same  hands  that  had  thrown  poison 
into  the  stream  of  their  lives!  Giovanni  trembled.  Bea 
trice  shuddered  very  nervously  and  pressed  her  hand  upon 
her  heart. 

"  My  daughter,"  said  Eappaccini,  "  thou  art  no  longer 
lonely  in  this  world.  Pluck  one  of  those  precious  gems 
from  thy  sister-shrub  and  bid  thy  bridegroom  wear  it  in 
his  bosom.  It  will  not  harm  him  now.  My  science  and 
the  sympathy  between  thee  and  him.  have  so  wrought 
within  his  system  that  he  now  stands  apart  from  common 
men,  as  thou  dost,  daughter  of  my  pride  and  triumph, 
from  ordinary  women.  Pass  on,  then,  through  the  world, 
most  dear  to  one  another  und  dreadful  to  all  besides," 


"  My  father/'  said  Beatrice,  feebly,  and  still,  as  she 
spoke,  she  kept  her  hand  upon  her  heart,  "  wherefore 
didst  thou  inflict  this  miserable  doom  upon  thy  child?" 

".Miserable!"  exclaimed  Rappaccini.  "  What  mean  yon, 
foolish  girl?  Dost  thou  deem  it  misery  to  be  endowed  with 
marvelous  gifts  against  which  no  power  nor  strength  could 
avail  an  enemy;  misery  to  be  able  to  quell  the  mightiest 
with  a  breath;  misery  to  be  as  terrible  as  thou  art  beau 
tiful?  Wouldst  thou,  then,  have  preferred  the  condi 
tion  of  a  weak  woman,  exposed  to  all  evil  and  capable  of 
none?" 

11 1  would  fain  have  been  loved,  not  feared,"  murmured 
Beatrice,  sinking  down  upon  the  ground.  "  But  now  it 
matters  not;  I  am  going,  father,  where  the  evil  which  thou 
hast  striven  to  mingle  with  my  being  will  pass  away  like  a 
dream — like  the  fragrance  of  these  poisonous  flowers, 
which  will  no  longer  taint  rny  breath  among  the  flowers  of 
Eden.  Farewell,  Giovanni!  Thy  words  of  hatred  are  like 
lead  within  my  heart,  but  they,  too,  will  fall  away  as  I  as 
cend.  Oh,  was  there  not  from  the  first  more  poison  in  thy 
nature  than  in  mine?" 

To  Beatrice — so  radically  had  her  earthly  part  been 
wrought  upon  by  Kappaccini's  skill — as  poison  had  been 
life,  so  the  powerful  antidote  was  death.  And  thus  the 
poor  victim  of  man's  ingenuity  and  of  thwarted  nature 
and  of  the  fatality  that  attends  all  such  efforts  of  per 
verted  wisdom  perished  there  at  the  feet  of  her  father  and 
Giovanni. 

Just  at  that  moment  Prof.  Pietro  Baglioni  looked  forth 
from  the  window  and  called  loudly,  and  in  a  tone  of  tri 
umph,  mixed  with  horror,  to  the  thunder-stricken  man  of 
science: 

"Rappaccini,  Rappaccini!  And  is  this  the  upshot  of 
your  experiment?" 


10?\  jBe8K8,  ff&M.Ajf  OLD  MANSE. 


MRS.  BULLFROG. 


IT  MAKES  me  melancholy  to  see  how  like  fools  some  very 
sensible  people  act  in  the  matter  of  choosing  wives.  They 
perplex  their  judgments  by  a  most  undue  attention  to  little 
niceties  of  personal  appearance,  habits,  disposition,  and 
other  trifles  which  concern  nobody  but  the  lady  herself. 
An  unhappy  gentleman  resolving  to  wed  nothing  short  of 
perfection  keeps  his  heart  and  hand  till  both  get  so  old  and 
withered  that  no  tolerable  woman  will  accept  them.  Now, 
this  is  the  very  height  of  absurdity.  A  kind  Providence 
has  so  skillfully  adapted  sex  to  sex  and  the  mass  of  indi 
viduals  to  each  other  that,  with  certain  obvious  exceptions, 
any  male  and  female  may  be  moderately  happy  in  the  mar 
ried  state.  The  true  rule  is  to  ascertain  that  the  match  is 
fundamentally  a  good  one,  and  then  to  take  it  for  granted 
that  all  minor  objections,  should  there  be  such,  will  van 
ish  if  you  let  them  alone.  Only  put  yourself  beyond 
hazard  as  to  the  real  basis  of  matrimonial  bliss,  and  it  is 
scarcely  to  be  imagined  what  miracles  in  the  way  of  recon 
ciling  smaller  incongruities  connubial  love  will  effect. 

For  my  own  part,  I  freely  confess  that  in  my  bachelor 
ship  I  was  precisely  such  an  overcurious  simpleton  as  I 
now  advise  the  reader  not  to  be.  My  early  habits  had 
gifted  me  with  a  feminine  sensibility  and  too  exquisite  re 
finement.  I  was  the  accomplished  graduate  of  a  dry-goods 
store  where  by  dint  of  ministering  to  the  whims  of  fine 
ladies,  and  suiting  silken  hose  to  delicate  limbs,  and  hand 
ling  satins,  ribbons,  chintzes,  calicoes,  tapes,  gauze  and 
cambric  needles,  I  grew  up  a  very  ladylike  sort  of  a  gen 
tleman.  It  is  not  assuming  too  much  to  affirm  that  the 
ladies  themselves  were  hardly  so  ladylike  as  Thomas  Bull 
frog.  So  painfully  acute  was  my  sense  of  female  imper 
fection,  and  such  varied  excellence  did  I  require  in  the 


MRS.  BULLFROG.  103 

woman  whom  I  could  love,  that  there  was  an  awful  risk  of 
my  getting  no  wife  at  all,  or  of  being  driven  to  perpetrate 
matrimony  with  my  own  image  in  the  looking-glass.  Be 
sides  the  fundamental  principle  already  hinted  at,  I  de 
manded  the  fresh  bloom  of  youth,  pearly  teeth,  glossy 
ringlets,  and  the  whole  list  of  lovely  items,  with  the  utmost 
delicacy  of  habits  and  sentiments,  a  silken  texture  of 
mind,  and,  above  all,  a  virgin  heart.  In  a  word,  if  a  young 
angel  just  from  Paradise,  yet  dressed  in  earthly  fashion, 
had  come  and  offered  me  her  hand,  it  is  by  no  means  cer 
tain  that  I  should  have  taken  it.  There  was  every  chance 
of  my  becoming  a  most  miserable  old  bachelor,  when  by 
the  best  luck  in  the  world  I  made  a  journey  into  another 
State  and  was  smitten  by  and  smote  again,  and  wooed, 
won  and  married,  the  present  Mrs.  Bullfrog,  all  in  the 
space  of  a- fortnight.  Owing  to  these  extempore  measures 
I  not  only  gave  my  bride  credit  for  certain  perfections 
which  have  not  as  yet  come  to  light,  but  also  overlooked  a 
few  trifling  defects,  which,  however,  glimmered  on  my  per 
ception  long  before  the  close  of  the  honeymoon.  Yet,  as 
there  was  no  mistake  about  the  fundamental  principle 
aforesaid,  I  soon  learned,  as  will  be  seen,  to  estimate  Mrs. 
Bullfrog's  deficiencies  and  superfluities  at  exactly  their 
proper  value. 

The  same  morning  that  Mrs.  Bullfrog  and  I  came  to 
gether  as  a  unit  we  took  two  seats  in  the  stage-coach  and 
began  our  journey  toward  my  place  of  business.  There 
being  no  other  passengers,  we  were  as  much  alone  and  as 
free  to  give  vent  to  our  raptures  as  if  I  had  hired  a  hack 
for  the  matrimonial  jaunt.  My  bride  looked  charmingly 
in  a  green  silk  calash  and  riding-habit  of  pelisse  cloth;  and 
whenever  her  red  lips  parted  with  a  smile,  each  tooth  ap 
peared  like  an  inestimable  pearl.  Such  was  my  passionate 
warmth  that — we  had  rattled  out  of  the  village,  gentle 
reader,  and  were  lonely  as  Adam  and  Eve  in  Paradise — I 
plead  guilty  to  no  less  freedom  than  a  kiss.  The  gentle 
eye  of  Mrs.  Bullfrog  scarcely  rebuked  me  for  the  profana 
tion.  Emboldened  by  her  indulgence,  I  threw  back  the 
calash  from  her  polished  brow  and  suffered  my  fingers, 
white  and  delicate  as  her  own,  to  stray  among  those  dark 
and  glossy  curls  which  realized  my  day-dreams  of  rich  hair. 

"  My  love,"  said  Mrs.  Bullfrog,  tenderly,  "  you  will  dis 
arrange  my  curls." 


104  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"  Oh,  no,  my  sweet  Laura,"  replied  I,  still  playing  with 
the  glossy  ringlet.  "  Even  your  fair  hand  could  not  man 
age  a  curl  more  delicately  than  mine.  I  propose  myself 
the  pleasure  of  doing  up  your  hair  in  papers  every  evening 
at  the  same  time  with  my  own." 

"  Mr.  Bullfrog,"  repeated  she,  "  you  must  not  disarrange 
my  curls." 

This  was  spoken  in  a  more  decided  tone  than  I  had  hap 
pened  to  hear  until  then  from  my  gentlest  of  all  gentle 
brides.  At  the  same  time  she  put  up  her  hand  and  took 
mine  prisoner,  but  merely  drew  it  away  from  the  forbidden 
ringlet,  and  then  immediately  released  it.  Now,  I  am  a 
fidgety  little  man  and  always  love  to  have  something  in 
my  fingers;  so  that,  being  debarred  from  my  wife's  curls,  I 
looked  about  me  for  any  other  plaything.  On  the  front 
seat  of  the  coach  there  was  one  of  those  small  baskets  in 
which  traveling  ladies  who  are  too  delicate  to  appear  at  a 
public  table,  generally  carry  a  supply  of  gingerbread,  bis 
cuits  and  cheese,  cold  ham,  and  other  light  refreshments, 
merely  to  sustain  nature  to  the  journey's  end.  Such  airy 
diet  will  sometimes  keep  them  in  pretty  good  flesh  for  a 
week  together.  Laying  hold  of  this  same  little  basket,  I 
thrust  my  hand  under  the  newspaper  with  which  it  was 
carefully  covered. 

"  What's  this,  my  dear?"  cried  I,  for  the  black  neck  of 
a  bottle  had  popped  out  of  the  basket. 

"  A  bottle  of  Kalydor,  Mr.  Bullfrog,"  said  my  wife, 
coolly  taking  the  basket  from  my  hand  and  replacing  it  on 
the  front  seat. 

There  was  no  possibility  of  doubting  my  wife's  word,  but 
I  never  knew  genuine  Kalydor,  such  as  I  use  for  my  own 
complexion,  to  smell  so  much  like  cherry-brandy.  I  was 
about  to  express  my  fears  that  the  lotion  would  injure  her 
skin,  when  an  accident  occurred  which  threatened  more  than 
a  skin-deep  injury.  Our  Jehu  had  carelessly  driven  over  a 
heap  of  gravel  and  fairly  capsized  the  coach,  with  the 
wheels  in  the  air  and  our  heels  where  our  heads  should 
have  been.  What  became  of  my  wits  I  cannot  imagaine: 
they  have  always  had  a  perverse  trick  of  deserting  me  just 
when  they  were  most  needed;  but  so  it  chanced  that  in  the 
confusion  of  our  overthrow  I  quite  forgot  that  there  was  a 
Mrs.  Bullfrog  in  the  world.  Like  many  men's  wives,  the 
good  lady  served  her  husband  as  a  stepping-stone,  I  had 


MRS.  BULLFROG.  105 

scrambled  out  of  the  coach  and  was  instinctively  settling 
my  cravat,  when  somebody  brushed  roughly  by  me  and  I 
heard,  a  smart  thwack  upon  the  coachman's  ear. 

"Take  that,  you  villain!"  cried  a  strange,  horse  voice. 
"You  have  ruined  me,  you  blackguard!  I  shall  never  be 
the  woman  I  have  been." 

And  then  came  a  second  thwack,  aimed  at  the  driver's 
other  ear,  but  which  missed  it  and  hit  him  on  the  nose, 
causing  a  terrible  effusion  of  blood.  Now,  who  or  what 
fearful  apparition  was  inflicting  this  punishment  on  the 
poor  fellow  remained  an  impenetrable  mystery  to  me.  The 
blows  were  given  by  a  person  of  grizzly  aspect  with  a  head 
almost  bold  and  sunken  cheeks,  apparently  of  the  feminine 
gender,  though  hardly  to  be  classed  in  the  gentler  sex. 
There  being  no  teeth  to  modulate  the  voice,  it  had  a  mum 
bled  fierceness — not  passionate,  but  stern — which  absolutely 
made  me  quiver  like  calves'-foot  jelly.  Who  could  the 
phantom  be?  The  most  awful  circumstance  of  the  affair 
is  yet  to  be  told,  for  this  ogre — or  whatever  it  was — had  a 
riding-habit  like  Mrs.  Bullfrog's,  and  also  a  green  silk 
calash  dangling  down  her  back  by  the  strings.  In  my  ter 
ror  and  turmoil  of  mind  I  could  imagine  nothing  less  than 
that  the  Old  Nick  at  the  moment  of  our  overturn  had  an 
nihilated  my  wife  and  jumped  into  her  petticoats.  This 
idea  seemed  the  more  probable  since  I  could  nowhere  per 
ceive  Mrs.  Bullfrog  alive,  nor,  though  I  looked  very  sharp 
about  the  coach,  could  I  detect  any  traces  of  that  beloved 
woman's  dead  body.  There  would  have  been  a  comfort  in 
giving  her  Christian  burial. 

"  Come,  sir!  bestir  yourself  I  Help  this  rascal  to  set  up 
the  coach,"  said  the  hobgobblin  to  me;  then,  with  a 
terrific  screech  to  three  countrymen  at  a  distance:  "Here, 
you  fellows!  Ain't  you  ashamed  to  stand  off  when  a  poor 
woman  is  in  distress?  " 

The  countrymen,  instead  of  fleeing  for  their  lives,  came 
running  at  full  speed  and  laid  hold  of  the  topsy-turvy 
coach.  I,  also,  though  a  small-sized  man,  went  to  work 
like  a  son  of  Anak.  The  coachman,  too,  with  the  blood 
still  streaming  from  his  nose,  tugged  and  toiled  most  man 
fully,  dreading,  doubtless,  that  the  next  blow  might  break 
his  head.  And  yet,  bemauled  as  the  poor  fellow  had  been, 
he  seemed  to  glance  at  me  with  an  eye  of  pity,  as  if  my 
case  were  more  deplorable  than  his.  But  I  cherished  a 


106  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

hope  that  all  would  turn  out  a  dream,  and  seized  the  op 
portunity,  as  we  raised  the  coach,  to  jam  two  of  my 
lingers  under  the  wheel,  trusting  that  the  pain  would 
awaken  me. 

"  Why,  here  we  are  all  to  rights  again!  "  exclaimed  a 
sweet  voice,  behind.  *'  Thank  you  for  your  assistance, 
gentlemen.  My  dear  Mr.  Bullfrog,  how  you  perspire!  Do 
let  me  wipe  your  face.  Don't  take  this  little  accident  too 
much  to  heart,  good  driver.  We  ought  to  be  thailkful 
that  none  of  our  necks  are  broken!" 

"  We  might  have  spared  one  neck  out  of  the  three," 
muttered  the  driver,  rubbing  his  ear  and  pulling  his  nose, 
to  ascertain  whether  he  had  been  cuffed  or  not.  "  Why, 
the  woman's  a  witch! ' 

1  fear  that  the  reader  will  not  believe,  yet  it  is  positively 
a  fact,  that  there  stood  Mrs.  Bullfrog  with  her  glossy  ring 
lets  curling  on  her  brow  and  two  rows  of  Orient  pearls 
gleaming  between  her  parted  lips,  which  wore  a  most  an 
gelic  smile.  She  had  regained  her  riding-habit  and  calash 
from  the  grizzly  phantom^  and  was  in  all  respects  the 
lovely  woman  who  had  been  sitting  by  my  side  at  the  in 
stant  of  our  overturn.  How  she  had  happened  to  disappear 
and  who  had  supplied  her  place  and  whence  she  did  now 
return,  were  problems  too  knotty  for  me  to  solve.  There 
stood  my  wife;  that  was  the  one  thing  certain  among  a 
heap  of  mysteries.  Nothing  remained  but  to  help  her 
into  the  coach  and  plod  on  through  the  journey  of  the  day 
and  the  journey  of  life  as  comfortably  as  we  could.  As 
the  driver  closed  the  door  upon  us  I  heard  him  whisper  to 
the  three  countrymen: 

"  How  do  you  suppose  a  fellow  feels  shut  up  in  the  cage 
with  a  she-tiger?" 

Of  course  this  query  could  have  no  reference  to  my  sit 
uation;  yet,  unreasonable  as  it  may  appear,  I  confess  that 
my  feelings  were  not  altogether  so  ecstatic  as  when  I  first 
called  Mrs.  Bullfrog  mine.  True,  she  was  a  sweet  woman 
and  an  angel  of  a  wife;  but  what  if  a  gorgon  should  re 
turn  amid  the  transports  of  our  connubial  bliss  and  take 
the  angel's  place!  I  recollect  the  tale  of  a  fairy  who  half 
the  time  was  a  beautiful  woman  and  half  the  time  a 
hideous  monster.  Had  I  taken  that  very  fairy  to  be  the 
wife  of  my  bosom?  While  such  whims  and  chimeras  were 
Hitting  across  my  fancy,  I  began  to  look  askance  at  Mrs, 


MRS.  BULLFROG.  10? 

Bullfrog,  almost  expecting  that  the  transformation  would 
be  wrought  before  my  eyes. 

To  divert  my  mind,  I  took  up  the  newspaper  which  had 
covered  the  little  basket  of  refreshments,  and  which  now 
lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  coach  blushing  with  a  deep-red 
stain  and  emitting  a  potent  spirituous  fume  from  the  con 
tents  of  the  broken  bottle  of  Kalydor.  The  paper  was  two 
or  three  years  old,  but  contained  an  article  of  several  col 
umns  in  which  I  soon  grew  wonderfully  interested.  It  was 
the  report  of  a  trial  for  breach  of  promise  of  marriage, 
giving  the  testimony  in  full,  with  fervid  extracts  from  both 
the  gentleman's  and  lady's  amatory  correspondence.  The 
deserted  damsel  had  personally  appeared  in  court  and  had 
borne  energetic  evidence  to  her  lover's  perfidy  and  the 
strength  of  her  blighted  affections.  On  the  defendant's 
part  there  had  been  an  attempt,  though  insufficiently  sus 
tained,  to  blast  the  plaintiff's  character  and  a  plea,  in  miti 
gation  of  damages,  on  account  of  her  unamiable  temper. 
A  horrible  idea  was  suggested  by  the  lady's  name. 

"  Madam/7  said  I,  holding  the  newspaper  before  Mrs. 
Bullfrog's  eyes — and,  though  a  small,  delicate  and  thin- 
visaged  man,  I  feel  assured  that  I  looked  very  terrific — 
"  Madam,"  repeated  I,  through  my  shut  teeth,  '"were  you 
the  plaintiff  in  this  cause?" 

"  Oh,  my  dear  Mr.  Bullfrog!"  replied  my  wife,  sweetly; 
"  I  thought  all  the  world  knew  that." 

"  Horror!  horror!"  exclaimed  I,  sinking  back  on  the  seat. 

Covering  my  face  with  both  hands  I  emitted  a  deep  and 
death-like  groan,  as  if  my  tormented  soul  were  rending  me 
asunder.  I,  the  most  exquisitely  fastidious  of  men  and 
whose  wife  was  to  have  been  the  most  delicate  and  refined 
of  women,  with  all  the  fresh  dew-drops  glittering  on  her 
virgin  rosebud  of  a  heart!  I  thought  of  the  glossy  ringlets 
and  pearly  teeth,  I  thought  of  the  Kalydor,  I  thought  of 
the  coachman's  bruised  ear  and  bloody  nose,  I  thought  of 
the  tender  love-secrets  which  she  had  whispered  to  the 
judge  and  jury  and  a  thousand  tittering  auditors  and 
gave  another  groan. 

"  Mr.  Bullfrog!"  said  my  wife. 

As  I  made  no  reply,  she  gently  took  my  hands  within  her 
own,  removed  them  from  my  face  and  fixed  her  eyes  stead 
fastly  on  mine. 

"  Mr.  Bullfrog,"  said  she,  not  unkindly,  yet  with  all  the 
decision  of  her  strong  character,  "let  me  advise  you  to 


108  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

overcome  this  foolish  weakness  and  prove  yourself  to  the 
best  of  your  ability  as  good  a  husband  as  I  will  be  a  wife. 
You  have  discovered,  perhaps,  some  little  imperfections  in 
your  bride.  Well,  what  did  you  expect?  Women  are  not 
angels;  if  they  were  they  would  go  to  heaven  for  husbands, 
or,  at  least,  be  more  difficult  in  their  choice  on  earth." 

"  But  why  conceal  those  imperfections?"  interposed  I, 
tremulously. 

"  Now,  my  love,  are  not  you  a  most  unreasonable  little 
man?"  said  Mrs.  Bullfrog,  patting  me  on  the  cheek. 
"  Ought  a  woman  to  disclose  her  frailties  earlier  than  the 
wedding-day?  Few  husbands,  I  assure  you,  make  the  dis 
covery  in  such  good  season  and  still  fewer  complain  that 
these  trifles  are  concealed  too  long.  Well,  what  a  strange 
man  you  are!  Poh!  you  are  joking." 

"But  the  suit  for  breach  of  promise?"  groaned  I. 

"  Ah!  and  is  that  the  rub?"  exclaimed  my  wife.  "  Is  it 
possible  that  you  view  that  affair  in  an  objectionable  light? 
Mr.  Bullfrog,  I  never  could  have  dreamed  it.  Is  it  an  ob 
jection  that  I  have  triumphantly  defended  myself  against 
slander  and  vindicated  my  purity  in  a  court  of  justice? 
Or  do  you  complain  because  your  wife  has  shown  the 
proper  spirit  of  a  woman  and  punished  the  villain  who 
trifled  with  her  affections?" 

"  But,"  persisted  I,  shrinking  into  a  corner  of  the  coach, 
however,  for  I  did  not  know  precisely  how  much  contradic 
tion  the  proper  spirit  of  a  woman  would  endure:  "  but,  my 
love,  would  it  not  have  been  more  dignified  to  treat  the 
villain  with  the  silent  contempt  he  merited?" 

"  That  is  all  very  well,  Mr.  Bullfrog,"  said  my  wife, 
slyly,  "  but  in  that  case  where  would  have  been  the 
$5,000  which  are  to  stock  your  dry-goods  store  ?"  "  Mrs. 
Bullfrog,  upon  your  honor,"  demanded  I,  as  if  my  life 
hung  upon  her  words,  "  is  there  no  mistake  about  those 
$5,000  ?" 

"  Upon  my  word  and  honor  there  is  none,"  replied  she. 
"The  jury  gave  me  every  cent  the  rascal  had  and  I  have 
kept  it  all  for  my  dear  Bullfrog." 

"  Then,  thou  dear  woman,"  cried  I,  with  an  overwhelm 
ing  gush  of  tenderness,  "let  me  fold  thee  to  my  heart! 
The  basis  of  matrimonial  bliss  is  secure  and  all  thy  little 
defects  and  frailties  are  forgiven.  Nay,  since  the  result 
has  been  so  fortunate,  I  rejoice  at  the  wrongs  which  drove 
thee  to  this  blessed  lawsuit,  happy  Bullfrog  that  1  am  ! " 


109 


FIRE-WORSHIP. 


IT  is  a  great  revolution  in  social  and  domestic  life — and 
no  less  so  in  the  life  of  the  secluded  student — this  almost 
universal  exchange  of  the  open  fire-place  for  the  cheerless 
and  ungenial  stove.  On  such  a  morning  as  now  lowers 
around  our  old  gray  parsonage  I  miss  the  bright  face  of 
my  ancient  friend  who  was  wont  to  dance  upon  the  hearth 
and  play  the  part  of  a  more  familiar  sunshine.  It  is  sad  to 
turn  from  the  cloudy  sky  and  somber  landscape — from 
yonder  hill  with  its  crown  of  rusty  black  pines,  the  foliage 
of  which  is  so  dismal  in  the  absence  of  the  sun  ;  that 
bleak  pasture-land  and  the  broken  surface  of  the  potato 
field  with  the  brown  clods  partly  concealed  by  the  snowfall 
of  last  night;  the  swollen  and  sluggish  river,  with  ice- 
incrusted  borders,  dragging  its  bluish-gray  stream  along 
the  verge  of  our  orchard  like  a  snake  half  torpid  with  the 
cold — it  is  sad  to  turn  from  an  outward  scene  of  so  little 
comfort  and  find  the  same  sullen  influences  brooding 
within  the  precincts  of  my  study.  Where  is  that  brilliant 
guest,  that  quick  and  subtle  spirit  whom  Prometheus  lured 
from  heaven  to  civilize  mankind  and  cheer  them  in  their 
wintry  desolation,  that  comfortable  inmate  whose  smile 
during  eight  months  of  the  year  was  our  sufficient  consola 
tion  for  summer's  lingering  advance  and  early  flight?  Alas! 
blindly  inhospitable,  grudging  the  food  that  kept  him 
cheery  and  mercurial,  we  have  thrust  him  into  an  iron 
prison  and  compel  him  to  smolder  away  his  life  on  a 
daily  pittance  which  once  would  have  been  too  scanty  for 
his  breakfast.  Without  a  metaphor,  we  now  make  our 
fire  in  an  air-tight  stove  and  supply  it  with  some  half  a 
dozen  sticks  of  wood  between  dawn  and  nightfall. 

I  never  shall  be  reconciled  to  this  enormity.  Truly  may 
it  be  said  that  the  world  looks  darker  for  it  In  one  way 


HO  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

or  another.,  here  aud  there  and  all  around  us,  the  inventions 
of  mankind  are  fast  blotting  the  picturesque,  the  poetic 
and  the  beautiful  out  of  human  life.  The  domestic  fire 
was  a  type  of  all  these  attributes,  and  seemed  to  bring 
might  and  majesty  and  wild  Nature  and  a  spiritual  essence 
into  our  inmost  home,  and  yet  to  dwell  with  us  in  such 
friendliness  that  its  mysteries  and  marvels  excited  no  dis 
may.  The  same  mild  companion  that  smiled  so  placidly 
in  our  faces  was  he  that  comes  roaring  out  of  ./Etna  and 
rushes  madly  up  the  sky  like  a  fiend  breaking  loose  from 
torment  and  fighting  for  a  place  among  the  upper  angels. 
He  it  is,  too,  that  leaps  from  cloud  to  cloud  amid  the  crash 
ing  thunderstorm.  It  was  he  whom  the  Gheber  worshiped 
with  no  unnatural  idolatry,  and  it  was  he  who  devoured 
London  and  Moscow,  and  many  another  famous  city,  and 
who  loves  to  riot  through  our  dark  forests  and  sweep  across 
our  prairies,  and  to  whose  ravenous  maw,  it  is  said,  the 
universe  shall  one  day  be  given  as  a  final  feast.  Mean 
while,  he  is  the  great  artisan  and  laborer  by  whose  aid 
men  are  enabled  to  build  a  world  within  a  world — or,  at 
least,  to  smooth  down  the  rough  creation  which  Nature 
flung  to  us.  He  forges  the  mighty  anchor  and  every  lesser 
instrument,  he  drives  the  steamboat  and  drags  the  rail-car, 
and  it  was  he — this  creature  of  terrible  might  and  so  many- 
sided  utility  and  all-comprehensive  destructiveness — that 
used  to  be  the  cheerful,  homely  friend  of  our  wintry  days, 
and  whom  we  have  made  the  prisoner  of  this  iron  cage. 

How  kindly  he  was,  and,  though  the  tremendous  agent 
of  change,  yet  bearing  himself  with  such  gentleness,  so 
rendering  himself  a  part  of  all  lifelong  and  age-coeval  as 
sociations,  that  it  seemed  as  if  he  were  the  great  conserva 
tive  of  Nature.  While  a  man  was  true  to  the  fireside,  so 
long  would  he  be  true  to  country  and  law,  to  the  God 
whom  his  fathers  worshiped,  to  the  wife  of  his  youth,  and 
to  all  things  else  which  instinct  or  religion  have  taught  us 
to  consider  sacred.  With  how  sweet  humility  did  this  ele 
mental  spirit  perform  all  needful  offices  for  the  household 
in  which  he  was  domesticated!  He  was  equal  to  the  con 
coction  of  a  grand  dinner,  yet  scorned  not  to  roast  a  potato 
or  toast  a  bit  of  cheese.  How  humanely  did  he  cherish 
the  school-boy's  icy  fingers  and  thaw  the  old  man's  joints 
with  a  genial  warmth  which  almost  equaled  the  glow  of 
youth!  And  how  carefully  did  he  dry  the  cowhide  boots 


FIRE-  W011SU1P.  Ill 

that  had  trudged  through  mud  and  snow,  and  the  shaggy 
outside  garment  stiff  with  frozen  sleet,  taking  heed,  like 
wise,  to  the  comfort  of  the  faithful  dog  who  had  followed 
his  master  through  the  storm!  When  did  he  refuse  a  coal 
to  light  a  pipe,  or  even  a  part  of  his  own  substance  to 
kindle  a  neighbor's  lire?  And  then,  at  twilight,  when 
laborer  or  scholar,  or  mortal  of  whatever  age,  sex  or  de 
gree,  drew  a  chair  beside  him  and  looked  into  his  glowing 
face,  how  acute,  how  profound,  how  comprehensive,  was 
his  sympathy  with  the  mood  of  each  and  all!  lie  pictured 
forth  their  very  thoughts.  To  the  youthful  he  showed  the 
scenes  of  the  adventurous  life  before  them  ;  to  the  aged, 
the  shadows  of  departed  love  and  hope;  and  if  all  earthly 
things  had  grown  distasteful,  he  could  gladden  the  fireside- 
muser  with  golden  glimpses  of  a  better  world.  And  amid 
this  varied  communion  with  the  human  soul  how  busily 
would  the  sympathizer,  the  deep  moralist,  the  painter  of 
magic  pictures,  be  causing  the  tea-kettle  to  boil! 

Nor  did  it  lessen  the  charm  of  his  soft,  familiar  courtesy 
and  helpfulness  that  the  mighty  spirit,  were  opportunity 
olfered  him,  would  run  riot,  through  the  peaceful  house, 
wrap  its  inmates  in  his  terrible  embrace,  and  leave  nothing 
to  them  save  their  whitened  bones.  This  possibility  of  mad 
destruction  only  made  his  domestic  kindness  the  more 
beautiful  and  touching.  It  was  so  sweet  of  him,  being  en 
dowed  with  such  power,  to  dwell  day  after  day,  and  one 
long,  lonesome  night  after  another,  on  the  dusky  hearth, 
only  now  and  then  betraying  his  wild  nature  by  thrusting 
his  red  tongue  out  of  the  chimney-top!  True,  he  had  done 
much  mischief  in  the  world,  and  wan  pretty  certain  to  do 
more,  but  his  warm  heart  atoned  for  all.  lie  was  kindly 
to  the  race  of  man,  and  they  pardoned  his  characteristic 
imperfections. 

The  good  old  clergyman,  my  predecessor  in  this  mansion, 
was  well  acquainted  with  the  comforts  of  the  fireside.  His 
yearly  allowance  of  wood,  according  to  the  terms  of  his  set 
tlement,  was  no  less  than  sixty  cords.  Almost  an  annual 
forest  was  converted  from  sound  oak-logs  into  ashes  in  the 
kitchen,  the  parlor,  and  this  little  study  where  now  an  un 
worthy  successor — not  in  the  pastoral  oilice,  but  merely  in 
his  earthly  abode — sits  scribbling  beside  an  air-tight  stove. 
I  love  to  fancy  one  of  those  fireside  days  while  the  good 
man,  a  contemporary  of  the  Revolution,  was  in  his  early 


112  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

prime,  some  sixty-five  years  ago.  Before  sunrise,  doubt 
less,  the  blaze  hovered  upon  the  gray  skirts  of  night  and 
dissolved  the  frost-work  that  had  gathered  like  a  curtain 
over  the  small  window-panes.  There  is  something  peculiar 
in  the  aspect  of  the  morning  fireside — a  fresher,  brisker 
glare,  the  absence  of  that  mellowness  which  can  be  pro 
duced  only  by  half-consumed  logs  and  shapeless  brands 
with  the  white  ashes  on  them  and  mighty  coals,  the  rem 
nant  of  tree-trunks  that  the  hungry  elements  have  gnawed 
for  hours.  The  morning  hearth,  too,  is  newly  swept  and 
the  brazen  andirons  well  brightened;  so  that  the  cheerful 
fire  may  see  its  face  in  them.  Surely  it  was  happiness 
when  the  pastor,  fortified  with  a  substantial  breakfast,  sat 
down  in  his  arm-chair  and  slippers  and  opened  the 
"  Whole  Body  of  Divinity "  or  the  "  Commentary  on 
Job,"  or  whichever  of  his  old  folios  or  quartos  might  fall 
within  the  range  of  his  weekly  sermons.  It  must  have 
been  his  own  fault  if  the  warmth  and  glow  of  this  abun 
dant  hearth  did  not  permeate  the  discourse  and  keep  his 
audience  comfortable  in  spite  of  the  bitterest  northern 
blast  that  ever  wrestled  with  the  church-steeple.  He  reads 
while  the  heat  warps  the  stiff  covers  of  the  volume,  he 
writes  without  numbness  either  in  his  heart  or  fingers,  and 
with  unstinted  hand  he  throws  fresh  sticks  of  wood  upon 
the  fire. 

A  parishioner  comes  in.  With  what  warmth  of  benevo 
lence — how  should  he  be  otherwise  than  warm  in  any  of 
his  attributes? — does  the  minister  bid  him  welcome  and  set 
a  chair  for  him  in  so  close  proximity  to  the  hearth  that 
soon  the  guest  finds  it  needful  to  rub  his  scorched  shins 
with  his  great  red  hands?  The  melted  snow  drips  from  his 
steaming  boots  and  bubbles  upon  the  hearth.  His  puckered 
forehead  unravels  its  entanglement  of  criss-cross  wrinkles. 
We  lose  much  of  the  enjoyment  of  fireside  heat  without 
such  an  opportunity  of  marking  its  genial  effect  upon 
those  who  have  been  looking  the  inclement  weather  in  the 
face.  In  the  course  of  the  day  our  clergyman  himself 
strides  forth,  perchance  to  pay  a  round  of  pastoral  visits, 
or,  it  may  be,  to  visit  his  mountain  of  a  wood-pile  and 
cleave  the  monstrous  logs  into  billets  suitable  for  the  fire. 
He  returns  with  fresher  life  to  his  beloved  hearth.  Dur 
ing  the  short  afternoon  the  western  sunshine  comes  into 
the  study  and  strives  to  stare  the  ruddy  blaze  out  of  coun- 


FIRE-WORSniP.  113 

tenance,  but  with  only  a  brief  triumph,  soon  to  be  suc 
ceeded  by  brighter  glories  of  its  rival.  Beautiful  it  is  to 
sec  the  strengthening  gleam,  the  deepening  light,  that 
gradually  casts  distinct  shadows  of  the  human  figure,  the 
table  and  the  high-backed  chairs  upon  the  opposite  wall, 
and  at  length,  as  twilight  comes  on,  replenishes  the  room 
with  living  radiance  and  makes  life  all  rose-color.  Afar 
the  wayfarer  discerns  the  flickering  flame  as  it  dances  upon 
the  windows,  and  hails  it  as  a  beacon-light  of  humanity, 
reminding  him,  in  his  cold  and  lonely  path,  that  the  world 
is  not  all  snow  and  solitude  and  desolation.  At  eventide, 
probably,  the  study  was  peopled  with  the  clergyman's 
wife  and  family,  and  children  tumbled  themselves  upon 
the  hearth-rug,  and  grave  Puss  sat  with  her  back  to  the 
fire  or  gazed  with  a  semblance  of  human  meditation  into 
its  fervid  depths.  Seasonably  the  plenteous  ashes  of  the 
day  were  raked  over  the  moldering  brands,  and  from  the 
heap  came  jets  of  flame  and  an  incense  of  night-long 
smoke  creeping  quietly  up  the  chimney. 

Heaven  forgive  the  old  clergyman!  In  his  later  life, 
when  for  almost  ninety  winters  lie  had  been  gladdened  by 
the  firelight — when  it  had  gleamed  upon  him  from  infancy 
to  extreme  age,  and  never  without  brightening  his  spirits 
as  well  as  his  visage,  and  perhaps  keeping  him  alive  so 
long — he  had  the  heart  to  brick  up  his  chimney-place  and 
bid  farewell  to  the  face  of  his  old  friend  forever.  Why 
did  not  he  take  an  eternal  leave  of  the  sunshine,  too?  His 
sixty  cords  of  wood  had  probably  dwindled  to  a  far  less 
ample  supply  in  modern  times,  and  it  is  certain  that  the 
parsonage  had  grown  crazy  with  time  and  tempest  and 
pervious  to  the  cold,  but  still  it  was  one  of  the  saddest 
tokens  of  the  decline  and  fall  of  open  fire-places  that  the 
gray  patriarch  should  have  deigned  to  warm  himself  at  an 
air-tight  stove. 

And  I,  likewise,  who  have  found  a  home  in  this  ancient 
owl's  nest  since  its  former  occupant  took  his  heavenward 
flight — I,  to  my  shame,  have  put  up  stoves  in  kitchen  and 
parlor  and  chamber.  Wander  where  you  will  about  the 
house,  not  a  glimpse  of  the  earth-born,  heaven-aspiring 
fiend  of  ./Etna — him  that  sports  in  the  thunderstorm,  the 
idol  of  the  Ghebers,  the  devourer  of  cities,  the  forest-rioter 
and  prairie-sweeper,  the  future  destroyer  of  our  earth,  the 
old  chimney-corner  companion  who  mingles  himself  so 


1 14  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE, 

sociably  with  household  joys  and  sorrows — not  a  glimpse  of 
tliis  mighty  and  kindly  one  will  greet  your  eyes.  He  is 
now  an  invisible  presence.  There  is  his  iron  cage;  touch 
it  and  he  scorches  your  fingers.  He  delights  to  singe  a 
garment  or  perpetrate  any  other  little  unworthy  mischief, 
for  his  temper  is  ruined  by  the  ingratitude  of  mankind, 
for  whom  he  cherished  such  a  warmth  of  feeling,  and  to 
whom  he  taught  all  their  arts,  even  that  of  making  his 
own  prison-house.  In  his  fits  of  rage  he  puffs  volumes  of 
smoke  and  noisome  gas  through  the  crevices  of  the  door 
and  shakes  the  iron  walls  of  his  dungeon  so  as  to  over 
throw  the  ornamental  urn  upon  its  summit.  We  tremble 
lest  he  should  break  forth  among  us.  Much  of  his  time 
is  spent  in  sighs  burdened  with  unutterable  grief  and  long- 
drawn  through  the  funnel.  He  amuses  himself,  too,  with 
repeating  all  the  whispers,  the  moans  and  the  louder  utter 
ances  or  tempestuous  howls  of  the  wind;  so  that  the  stove 
becomes  a  microcosm  of  the  aerial  world.  Occasionally 
there  are  strange  combinations  of  sounds — voices  talking 
almost  articulately  within  the  hollow  chest  of  iron — inso 
much  that  Fancy  beguiles  me  with  the  idea  that  my  fire 
wood  must  have  grown  in  that  infernal  forest  of  lamenta 
ble  trees  which  breathed  their  complaints  to  Dante.  When 
the  listener  is  half-asleep  he  may  readily  take  these  voices 
for  the  conversation  of  spirits  and  assign  them  an  intelli 
gible  meaning.  Anon,  there  is  a  pattering  noise — drip, 
drip,  drip — as  if  a  summer  shower  was  falling  within  the 
narrow  circumference  of  the  stove. 

These  barren  and  tedious  eccentricities  are  all  that  the 
air-tight  stove  can  bestow  in  exchange  for  the  invaluable 
moral  influences  which  we  have  lost  by  our  desertion  of 
the  open  fire-place.  Alas!  is  this  world  so  very  bright 
that  we  can  afford  to  choke  up  such  a  domestic  fountain 
of  gladsomeness  and  sit  down  by  its  darkened  source  with 
out  being  conscious  of  a  gloom? 

It  is  my  belief  that  social  intercouse  cannot  long  con 
tinue  what  it  has  been  now  that  we  have  subtracted  from 
it  so  important  and  vivifying  an  element  as  firelight.  The 
effects  will  be  more  perceptible  on  our  children  and  the 
generations  that  shall  succeed  them  than  on  ourselves,  the 
mechanism  of  whose  life  may  remain  unchanged,  though 
its  spirit  be  far  other  than  it  was.  The  sacred  trust  of  the 
household  fire  has  been  transmitted  in  unbroken  succession 


FIRE-WORSHIP.  115 

from  the  earliest  ages  and  faithfully  cherished  in  spite  of 
every  discouragement,  such  as  the  curfew  law  of  the  Nor 
man  conquerors,  until  in  these  evil  days  physical  science 
has  nearly  succeeded  in  extinguishing  it.  But  we,  at 
least,  have  our  youthful  recollections  tinged  with  the  glow 
of  the  hearth  and  our  lifelong  hahits  and  associations  ar 
ranged  on  the  principle  of  a  mutual  bond  in  the  domestic 
lire.  Therefore,  though  the  sociable  friend  be  forever  de 
parted,  yet  in  a  degree  he  will  be  spiritually  present  with 
us  and  still  more  will  the  empty  forms  which  were  once  full 
of  his  rejoicing  presence  continue  to  rule  our  manners. 
We  shall  draw  our  chairs  together  as  we  and  our  forefathers 
have  been  wont  for  thousands  of  years  back  and  sit  around 
some  blank  and  empty  corner  of  the  room  babbling  with 
unreal  cheerfulness  of  topics  suitable  to  the  homely  fireside. 
A  warmth  from  the  past — from  the  ashes  of  bygone  years 
and  the  raked-up  embers  of  long  ago — will  sometimes  thaw 
the  ice  about  our  hearts.  But  it  must  be  otherwise  with  our 
successors.  On  the  most  favorable  supposition,  they  will 
be  acquainted  with  the  fireside  in  no  better  shape  than  that 
of  the  sullen  stove,  and  more  probably  they  will  have  grown 
up  amid  furnace-heat  in  houses  which  might  be  fancied  to 
have  their  foundation  over  the  infernal  pit  whence  sulphur 
ous  steams  and  unbreathable  exhalations  ascend  through 
the  apertures  of  the  floor.  There  will  be  nothing  to  at 
tract  these  poor  children  to  one  center.  They  will  never 
behold  one  another  through  that  peculiar  medium  of  vison 
— the  ruddy  gleam  of  blazing  wood  or  bituminous  coal — 
which  gives  the  human  spirit  so  dee})  an  insight  into  its 
fellows  and  molts  all  humanity  into  one  cordial  heart  of 
hearts.  Domestic  life — if  it  may  still  be  termed  domestic 
— will  seek  its  separate  corners  and  never  gather  itself  into 
groups.  The  easy  gossip,  the  merry  yet  unambitious  jest, 
the  lifelike  practical  discussion  of  real  matters  in  a  casual 
way,  the  soul  of  truth  which  is  so  often  incarnated  in  a 
simple  fireside  word,  will  disappear  from  earth.  Conver 
sation  will  contract  the  air  of  a  debate  and  all  mortal  inter 
course  be  chilled  with  a  fatal  frost. 

In  classic  times  the  exhortation  to  fight  pro  aris  cf  focis 
— "for  the  altars  and  the  hearths  " — was  considered  the 
strongest  appeal  that  could  be  made  to  patriotism.  And 
it  seemed  an  immortal  utterance,  for  all  subsequent  ages 
and  people  have  acknowledged  its  force  and  responded  to 


116  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

it  with  the  full  portion  of  manhood  that  nature  had  as 
signed  to  each.  Wisely  were  the  altar  and  the  hearth 
conjoined  in  one  mighty  sentence,  for  the  hearth,  too, 
had  its  kindred  sanctity.  Religion  sat  down  beside  it — 
not  in 'the  priestly  robes  which  decorated  and  perhaps  dis 
guised  her  at  the  altar,  but  arrayed  in  a  simple  matron's 
garb  and  uttering  her  lessons  with  the  tenderness  of  a 
mother's  voice  and  heart0  The  holy  hearth  !  If  any 
earthly  and  material  thing — or,  rather,  a  divine  idea  em 
bodied  in  brick  and  mortar — might  be  supposed  to  possess 
the  permanence  of  moral  truth,  it  was  this.  All  revered 
it.  The  man  who  did  not  put  off  his  shoes  upon  this  holy 
ground  would  have  deemed  it  pastime  to  trample  upon  the 
altar.  It  has  been  our  task  to  uproot  the  hearth;  what 
further  reform  is  left  for  our  children  to  achieve  unless 
they  overthrow  the  altar  too?  And  by  what  appeal  here 
after,  when  the  breath  of  hostile  armies  may  mingle  with 
the  pure  cold  breezes  of  our  country,  shall  we  attempt  to 
rouse  up  native  valor?  Fight  for  your  hearths?  There 
will  be  none  throughout  the  land.  Fight  for  your  stoves? 
Not  I,  in  faith.  If  in  such  a  cause  I  strike  a  blow  it  shall 
be  on  the  invader's  part,  and  heaven  grant  that  it  may 
shatter  the  abomination  all  to  pieces  ! 


B  UDS  AND  BIRD-  VOICES.  117 


BUDS  AND  BIRD-VOICES. 


BALMY  Spring — weeks  later  than  we  expected,  and 
months  later  than  we  longed  for  her — conies  at  last  to  re 
vive  the  moss  on  the  roof  and  walls  of  our  old  mansion. 
She  peeps  brightly  into  my  study- window,  inviting  me  to 
throw  it  open  and  create  a  summer  atmosphere  by  the  in 
termixture  of  her  genial  breath  with  the  black  and  cheer 
less  comfort  of  the  stove.  As  the  casement  ascends,  forth 
into  infinite  space  fly  the  innumerable  forms  of  thought  or 
fancy  that  have  kept  me  company  in  the  retirement  of  this 
little  chamber  during  the  sluggish  lapse  of  wintry  weather. 
Visions  gay,  grotesque  and  sad,  pictures  of  real  life  tinted 
with  nature's  homely  gray  and  russet,  scenes  in  Dreamland 
bedizened  with  rainbow-hues  which  faded  before  they  were 
well  laid  on.  All  these  may  vanish  now  and  leave  me  to 
mold  a  fresh  existence  out  of  sunshine.  Brooding  med 
itation  may  flap  her  dusky  wings  and  take  her  owl-like 
flight  blinking  amid  the  cheerfulness-  of  noontide.  Such 
companions  betit  the  season  of  frosted  window-panes  and 
crackling  fires,  when  the  blast  howls  through  the  black-ash 
trees  of  our  avenue,  and  the  drifting  snowstorm  chokes  up 
the  wood-paths  and  fills  the  highway  from  stone  wall  to 
stone  wall.  In  the  spring  and  summer-time  all  somber 
thoughts  should  follow  the  winter  northward  with  the 
somber  and  thoughtful  crows.  The  old  paradisiacal  econ 
omy  of  life  is  again  in  force.:  we  live,  not  to  think  nor  to 
labor,  but  for  the  simple  end  of  being  happy;  nothing  for 
the  present  hour  is  worthy  of  man's  infinite  capacity  save 
to  imbibe  the  warm  smile  of  heaven  and  sympathize  with 
the  reviving  earth. 

The  present  Spring  comes  onward  with  fleeter  footsteps 
because  Winter  lingered  so  unconscionably  long  that  with 
her  best  diligence  she  can  hardly  retrieve  half  the  allotted 


118  MOSSES  FROM  ON  OLD  MANSE. 

period  of  her  reign.  It  is  but  a  fortnight  since  I  stood  on 
the  brink  of  our  swollen  river  and  beheld  the  accumulated 
ice  of  four  frozen  months  go  down  the  stream.  Except  in 
streaks  here  and  there  upon  the  hillsides,  the  whole  visible 
universe  was  then  covered  with  deep  snow  the  nethermost 
layer  of  which  had  been  deposited  by  an  early  December 
storm.  It  was  a  sight  to  make  the  beholder  torpid  in  the 
impossibility  of  imagining  how  this  vast  white  napkin  was 
to  be  removed  from  the  face  of  the  corpse-like  world  in  less 
time  than  had  been  required  to  spread  it  there.  But  who 
can  estimate  the  power  of  gentle  influences,  whether  amid 
material  desolation  or  the  moral  winter  of  man's  heart? 
There  have  been  no  tempestuous  rains — even  no  sultry 
days — but  a  constant  breath  of  southern  winds,  with  now 
a  day  of  kindly  sunshine,  and  now  a  no  less  kindly  mist  or 
a  soft  descent  of  showers  in  which  a  smile  and  a  blessing 
seemed  to  have  been  steeped.  The  snow  has  vanished  as  if 
by  magic;  whatever  heaps  may  be  hidden  in  the  woods  and 
deep  gorges  of  the  hills,  only  two  solitary  specks  remain  in 
the  landscape,  and  those  I  shall  almost  regret  to  miss  when 
to-morrow  I  look  for  them  in  vain. 

Never  before,  methinks,  has  Spring  pressed  so  closely  on 
the  footsteps  of  retreating  winter.  Along  the  roadside 
the  green  blades  of  grass  have  sprouted  on  the  very  edge 
of  the  snow-drifts.  The  pastures  and  the  mowing-fields 
have  not  yet  assumed  a  general  aspect  of  verdure,  but 
neither  have  they  the  cheerless  brown  tint  which  they  wear 
in  latter  autumn,  when  vegetation  has  entirely  ceased; 
there  is  now  a  faint  shadow  of  life,  gradually  brightening 
into  the  warm  reality.  Some  tracts  in  a  happy  exposure — 
as,  for  instance,  yonder  southern  slope  of  an  orchard, 
in  front  of  that  old  red  farm-house  beyond  the  river — such 
patches  of  land  already  wear  a  beautiful  and  tender  green 
to  which  no  future  luxuriance  can  add  a  charm.  It  looks 
unreal — a  prophecy,  a  hope,  a  transitory  effect  of  some 
peculiar  light  which  will  vanish  with  the  slightest  motion 
of  the  eye.  But  beauty  is  never  a  delusion;  not  these  ver 
dant  tracts  but  the  dark  and  barren  landscape  all  around 
them  is  a  shadow  and  a  dream.  Each  moment  wins  some 
portion  of  the  earth  from  death  to  life;  a  sudden  gleam  of 
verdure  brightens  along  the  sunny  slope  of  a  bank  which 
an  instant  ago  was  brown  and  bare.  You  look  again,  and, 
behold!  an  apparition  of  green  grass  ! 


B  UDS  AND  BIRD-  VOICES.  119 

The  trees  in  our  orchard  and  elsewhere  are  as  yet  naked, 
but  already  appear  full  of  life  and  vegetable  blood.  It 
seems  as  if  by  one  magic  touch  they  might  instantaneously 
burst  into  full  foliage,  and  that  the  wind  which  now  sighs 
through  their  naked  branches  might  make  sudden  music 
amid  innumerable  leaves.  The  moss-grown  willow  tree 
which  for  forty  years  past  has  overshadowed  these  western 
windows  will  be  among  the  first  to  put  on  its  green  attire. 
There  are  some  objections  to  the  willow;  it  is  not  a  dry  and 
cleanly  tree,  and  impresses  the  beholder  with  an  association 
of  sliminess.  Xo  trees,  I  think,  are  perfectly  agreeable  as 
companions  unless  they  have  glossy  leaves,  dry  bark  and 
a  linn  and  hard  texture  of  trunk  and  branches.  But  the 
willow  is  almost  the  earliest  to  gladden  us  with  the  promise 
and  reality  of  beauty  in  its  graceful  and  delicate  foliage, 
and  the  last  to  scatter  its  "yellow  yet  scarcely  withered 
leaves  upon  the  ground.  All  through  the  winter,  too,  its 
yellow  twigs  give  it  a  sunny  aspect  which  is  not  without  a 
cheering  influence  even  in  the  grayest  and  gloomiest  day. 
Beneath  a  clouded  sky  it  faithfully  remembers  the  sun 
shine.  Our  old  house  would  lose  a  charm  were  the  willow 
to  be  cut  down,  with  its  golden  crown  over  the  snow- 
covered  roof,  and  its  heaps  of  summer  verdure. 

The  lilac-shrubs  under  my  study  windows  are  likewise 
almost  in  leaf;  in  two  or  three  days  more  I  may  put  forth 
my  hand  and  pluck  the  topmost  bough  in  its  freshest  green. 
These  lilacs  are  very  aged  and  have  lost  the  luxuriant 
foliage  of  their  prime.  The  heart  or  the  judgment  or  the 
moral  sense  or  the  taste  is  dissatisfied  with  their  present 
aspect.  Old  age  is  not  venerable  when  it  embodies  itself 
in  lilacs,  rose-bushes,  or  any  other  ornamental  shrubs;  it 
seems  as  it'  such  plants,  as  they  grow  only  for  beauty, 
ought  to  flourish  only  in  immortal  youth — or,  at  least.,  to 
die  before  their  sad  decrepitude.  Trees  of  beauty  are 
trees  of  Paradise,  and  therefore  not  subject  to  decay  by 
their  original  nature,  though  they  have  lost  that  precious 
birthright  by  being  transplanted  to  an  earthly  soil.  There 
is  a  kind  of  ludicrous  uiintness  in  the  idea  of  a  time- 
stricken  and  grandfatherly  lilac-bush.  The  analogy  holds 
good  in  human  life.  Persons  who  can  only  be  graceful 
and  orarnental — who  can  give  the  world  nothing  but  flowers 
— should  die  young  and  never  be  seen  with  gray  hair  and 
wrinkles,  any  more  than  the  flower-shrubs  with  mossy  bark 


120  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

and  blighted  foliage,  like  the  lilacs  tinder  my  window. 
Not  that  beauty  is  worthy  of  less  than  immortality.  No; 
the  beautiful  should  live  forever,  and  thence,  perhaps,  the 
sense  of  impropriety  when  we  see  it  triumphed  over  by 
time.  Apple  trees,  on  the  other  hand,  grow  old  without 
reproach.  Let  them  live  as  long  as  they  may,  and  contort 
themselves  into  whatever  perversity  of  shape  they  please, 
and  deck  their  withered  limbs  with  a  spring-time  gandiness 
of  pink-blossoms,  still  they  are  respectable  even  if  they 
afford  us  only  an  apple  or  two  in  a  season.  Those  few 
apples — or,  at  all  events,  the  remembrance  of  apples  in  by 
gone  years — are  the  atonement  which  utilitarianism  in 
exorably  demands  for  the  privilege  of  lengthened  life. 
Human  flower-shrubs,  if  they  will  grow  old  on  earth, 
should,  besides  their  lovely  blossoms,  bear  some  kind  of 
fruit  that  will  satisfy  earthly  appetites,  else  neither  man 
nor  the  decorum  of  nature  will  deem  it  fit  that  the  moss 
should  gather  on  them. 

One  of  the  first  things  that  strikes  the  attention  when 
the  white  sheet  of  winter  is  withdrawn  is  the  neglect  and 
disarray  that  lay  hidden  beneath  it.  Nature  is  not  cleanly, 
according  to  our  prejudices.  The  beauty  of  preceding 
years,  now  transformed  to  brown  and  blighted  deformity, 
obstructs  the  brightening  loveliness  of  the  present  hour. 
Our  avenue  is  strewn  with  the  whole  crop  of  autumn's 
withered  leaves.  There  are  quantities  of  decayed  branches 
which  one  tempest  after  another  had  flung  down,  black 
and  rotten,  and  one  or  two  with  the  ruin  of  a  bird's  nest 
clinging  to  them.  In  the  garden  are  the  dried  bean-vines, 
the  brown  stalks  of  the  asparagus-bed,  and  melancholy  old 
cabbages  which  were  frozen  into  the  soil  before  their  un 
thrifty  cultivator  could  find  time  to  gather  thorn.  How 
invariably  throughout  all  the  forms  of  life  do  we  find  these 
intermingled  memorials  of  death!  On  the  soil  of  thought 
and  in  the  garden  of  the  heart,  as  well  as  in  the  sensual 
world,  lie  withered  leaves — the  ideas  and  feelings  that  we 
have  done  with.  There  is  no  wind  strong  enough  to  sweep 
them  away;  infinite  space  will  not  garner  them  from  our 
sight.  What  mean  they?  Why  may  we  not  be  permitted 
to  live  and  enjoy  as  if  this  were  the  first  life  and  our  own 
the  primal  enjoyment,  instead  of  treading  always  on  these 
dry  bones  and  moldering  relics  from  the  aged  accumula 
tion  of  which  springs  alj  tl'at  now  appears,  go  young  and 


B  UDS  AND  BIRD-  VOICES.  121 

new?  Sweet  must  have  been  the  spring-time  of  Eden, 
when  no  earlier  year  had  strewn  its  decay  upon  the  virgin 
turf,  and  no  former  experience  had  ripened  into  summer 
and  faded  into  autumn  in  the  hearts  of  its  inhabitants. 
That  was  a  world  worth  living  in.  Oh,  thou  murmurer, 
it  is  out  of  the  very  wantonness  of  such  a  life  that  thou 
feignest  these  idle  lamentations.  There  is  no  decay. 
Each  human  soul  is  the  first  created  inhabitant  of  its  own 
Eden.  AVe  dwell  in  an  old  moss-covered  mansion  and 
tread  in  the  worn  footprints  of  the  past  and  have  a  gray 
clergyman's  ghost  for  our  daily  and  nightly  inmate,  yet  all 
these  outward  circumstances  are  made  less  than  visionary 
by  the  renewing  power  of  the  spirit.  Should  the  spirit 
ever  lose  this  power — should  the  withered  leaves  and  the 
rotton  branches  and  the  moss-covered  house  and  ghost  of 
the  gray  past  ever  become  its  realities,  and  the  verdure 
and  the  freshness  merely  its  faint  dream — then  let  it  pray 
to  be  released  from  earth.  It  will  need  the  air  of  heaven 
to  revive  its  pristine  energies. 

What  an  unlooked-for  flight  was  this  from  our  shadowy 
avenue  of  black-ash  and  balm-of-Gilead  trees  into  the  in 
finite!  Now  we  have  our  feet  again  upon  the  turf.  No 
where  does  the  grass  spring  up  so  industriously  as  in  this 
homely  yard,  along  the  base  of  the  stone  wall  and  in  the 
sheltered  nooks  of  the  building  and  especially  around  the 
southern  doorstep,  a  locality  which  seems  particularly 
favorable  to  its  growth,  for  it  is  already  tall  enough  to  bend 
over  and  wave  in  the  wind.  I  observe  that  several  weeds — 
and,  most  frequently,  a  plant  that  stains  the  fingers  with 
its  yellow  juice — have  survived  and  retained  their  freshness 
and  sap  throughout  the  winter.  One  knows  not  how  they 
have  deserved  such  an  exception  from  the  common  lot  of 
their  race.  They  are  now  the  patriarchs  of  the  departed 
year  and  may  preach  mortality  to  the  present  generation 
of  flowers  and  weeds. 

Among  the  delights  of  spring  how  is  it  possible  to  forget 
the  birds?  Even  the  crows  were  welcome  as  the  sable  har 
bingers  of  a  brighter  and  livelier  race.  They  visited  us 
before  the  snow  was  off,  but  seem  mostly  to  have  betaken 
themselves  to  remote  depths  of  the  woods,  which  they  haunt 
all  summer  long.  Many  a  time  shall  1  disturb  them  there 
and  feel  as  if  I  had  intruded  among  a  company  of  silent 
worshipers  as  they  sit  in  Sabbath  stillness  among  the  tree- 


122  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

tops.  Their  voices,  when  they  speak,  are  in  admirable  ac 
cordance  with  the  tranquil  solitude  of  a  summer  afternoon, 
and,  resounding  so  far  above  the  head,  their  loud  clamor 
increases  the  religious  quiet  of  the  scene  instead  of  breaking 
it.  A  crow,  however,  has  no  real  pretensions  to  religion, 
in  spite  of  his  gravity  of  mien  and  black  attire  ;  he  is  cer 
tainly  a  thief,  and  probably  an  infidel.  The  gulls  are  far 
more  respectable,  in  a  moral  point  of  view.  These  denizens 
of  sea-beaten  rocks  and  haunters  of  the  lonely  beach  come 
up  our  inland  river  at  this  season,  and  soar  high  overhead, 
flapping  their  broad  wings  in  the  upper  sunshine.  They 
are  among  the  most  picturesque  of  birds,  because  they  so 
float  and  rest  upon  the  air  as  to  become  almost  stationary 
parts  of  the  landscape.  The  imagination  has  time  to  grow 
acquainted  with  them  ;  they  have  not  flitted  away  in  a 
moment.  You  go  up  among  the  clouds  and  greet  these 
lofty-flighted  gulls,  and  repose  confidently  with  them  upon 
the  "sustaining  atmosphere.  Ducks  have  their  haunts  along 
the  solitary  places  of  the  river  and  alight  in  flocks  upon 
the  broad  bosom  of  the  overflowed  meadows.  Their  flight 
is  too  rapid  and  determined  for  the  eye  to  catch  enjoyment 
from  it,  although  it  never  fails  to  stir  up  the  heart  with 
the  sportman's  ineradicable  instinct.  They  have  now  gone 
farther  northward,  but  will  visit  us  again  in  autumn. 

The  smaller  birds — the  little  songsters  of  the  woods,  and 
those  that  haunt  man's  dwellings  and  claim  human  friend 
ship  by  building  their  nests  under  the  sheltering  eaves  or 
among  the  orchard  trees — these  require  a  touch  more  deli 
cate  and  a  gentler  heart  than  mine  to  do  them  justice. 
Their  outburst  of  melody  is  like  a  brook  let  loose  from 
wintry  chains.  We  need  not  deem  it  a  too  high  and 
solemn  word  to  call  it  a  hymn  of  praise  to  the  Creator, 
since  Nature,  who  pictures  the  reviving  year  in  so  many 
sights  of  beauty,  has  expressed  the  sentiment  of  renewed 
life  in  no  other  sound  save  the  notes  of  these  blessed  birds. 
Their  music,  however,  just  now  seems  to  be  incidental,  and 
not  the  result  of  a  set  purpose.  They  are  discussing  the 
economy  of  life  and  love  and  the  site  and  architecture  of 
their  summer  residences,  and  have  no  time  to  sit  on  a  twig 
and  pour  forth  solemn  hymns  or  overtures,  operas,  sympho 
nies  and  waltzes.  Anxious  questions  are  asked,  grave  sub 
jects  are  settled  in  quick  ami  animated  debate,  and  only  by 
occasional  accident,  as  from  pure  ecstasy,  does  a  rich 


B  UDS  AND  BIRD-  VOICES.  123 

warble  roll  its  tiny  waves  of  golden  sound  through  the  at 
mosphere.  Their  little  bodies  are  as  busy  as  their  voices  ; 
they  are  in  a  constant  flutter  and  restlessness.  Even  when 
two  or  three  retreat  to  a  tree-top  to  hold  council,  they  wag 
their  tails  and  heads  all  the  time  with  the  irrepressible  ac 
tivity  of  their  nature;  which  perhaps  renders  their  brief 
span  of  life  in  reality  as  long  as  the  patriarchal  age  of 
sluggish  man.  The  blackbirds — three  species  of  which 
consort  together — are  the  noisiest  of  all  our  feathered  citi 
zens.  Great  companies  of  them — more  than  the  famous 
"  four-and-twenty  "  whom  Mother  Goose  has  immortalized 
— congregate  in  contiguous  tree-tops  and  vociferate  with 
all  the  clamor  and  confusion  of  a  turbulent  political  meet 
ing.  Politics,  certainly,  must  be  the  occasion  of  such 
tumultuous  debates,  but  still,  unlike  all  other  politicians, 
they  instill  melody  into  their  individual  utterances  and  pro 
duce  harmony  as  a  general  effect.  Of  all  bird-voices,  none 
are  more  sweet  and  cheerful  to  my  ear  than  those  of  swal 
lows  in  the  dim,  sun-streaked  interior  of  a  lofty  barn;  they 
address  the  heart  with  even  a  closer  sympathy  than  Robin 
Redbreast.  But,  indeed,  all  these  winged  people  that 
dwell  in  the  vicinity  of  homesteads  seem  to  partake  of  hu 
man  nature  and  possess  the  germ,  if  not  the  development 
of  immortal  souls.  "NVe  hear  them  saying  their  melodious 
prayers  at  morning's  blush  and  eventide.  A  little  while 
ago,  in  the  deep  of  night,  there  came  the  lively  trill  of  a 
bird's  note  from  a  neighboring  tree;  a  real  song  such  as 
greets  the  purple  dawn  or  mingles  with  the  yellow  sunshine. 
What  could  the  little  bird  mean  by  pouring  it  forth  at 
midnight?  Probably  the  music  gushed  out  of  the  midst 
of  a  dream  in  which  he  fancied  himself  in  Paradise  with 
his  mate,  but  suddenly  awoke  on  a  cold,  leafless  bough 
with  a  New  England  mist  penetrating  through  his 
feathers.  That  was  a  sad  exchange  of  imagination  for 
reality. 

Insects  are  among  the  earliest  births  of  spring.  Multi 
tudes,  of  I  know  not  what  species,  appeared,  long  ago  on 
the  surface  of  the  snow.  Clouds  of  them  almost  too  mi 
nute  for  sight  hover  in  a  beam  of  sunshine,  and  vanish  as  if 
annihilated  when  they  pass  into  the  shade.  A  mosquito 
has  already  been  heard  to  sound  the  small  horror  of  his 
bugle-horn.  Wasps  infest  the  sunny  windows  of  the  house. 
A  bee  entered  one  of  the  chambers  with  a  prophecy  of 


124  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

flowers.  Rare  butterflies  came  before  the  snow  was  off, 
flaunting  in  the  chill  breeze,  and  looking  forlorn  and  ail- 
astray  in  spite  of  the  magnificence  of  their  dark  velvet 
cloaks  with  golden  borders. 

The  fields  and  wood-paths  have  as  yet  few  charms  to  en 
tice  the  wanderer.  In  a  walk  the  other  day  I  found  no 
violets  nor  anemones,  nor  anything  in  the  likeness  of  a 
flower.  It  was  worth  while,  however,  to  ascend  our  oppo 
site  hill  for  the  sake  of  gaining  a  general  idea  of  the  ad 
vance  of  spring,  which  I  had  hitherto  been  studying  in  its 
minute  developments.  The  river  lay  round  me  in  a  semi 
circle,  overflowing  all  the  meadows  which  give  it  its  In 
dian  name  and  offering  a  noble  breath  to  sparkle  in  the 
sunbeams.  Along  the  hither  shore  a  row  of  trees  stood  up 
to  their  knees  in  water,  and  afar  off,  on  the  surface  of  the 
stream,  tufts  of  bushes  thrust  up  their  heads,  as  it  were, 
to  breathe.  The  most  striking  objects  were  great  solitary 
trees  here  and  there  with  a  mile-wide  waste  of  water  all 
around  them.  The  curtailment  of  the  trunk  by  its  immer 
sion  in  the  river  quite  destroys  the  fair  proportions  of  the 
tree,  and  thus  makes  us  sensible  of  a  regularity  and  pro 
priety  in  the  usual  forms  of  nature.  The  flood  of  the 
present  season,  though  it  never  amounts  to  a  freshet  on  our 
quiet  stream,  has  encroached  farther  upon  the  land  than 
any  previous  one  for  at  least  a  score  of  years.  It  has  over 
flowed  stone  fences,  and  even  rendered  a  portion  of  the 
highway  navigable  for  boats.  The  waters,  however,  are 
now  gradually  subsiding;  islands  become  annexed  to  the 
mainland,  and  other  islands  emerge  like  new  creations  from 
the  watery  waste.  The  scene  supplies  an  admirable  image 
of  the  receding  of  the  Nile — except  that  there  is  no  deposit 
of  black  slime — or  of  Noah's  flood,  only  that  there  is  a 
freshness  and  novelty  in  these  recovered  portions  of  the 
continent  which  give  the  impression  of  a  world  just  made 
rather  than  of  one  so  polluted  that  a  deluge  had  been 
requisite  to  purify  it.  These  upspringing  islands  are  the 
greenest  spots  in  the  landscape;  the  first  gleam  of  sunlight 
suffices  to  cover  them  with  verdure. 

Thank  Providence  for  spring!  The  earth — and  man 
himself,  by  sympathy  with  his  birth-place — would  be  far 
other  than  we  find  them  if  life  toiled  wearily  onward  with 
out  this  periodical  infusion  of  the  primal  spirit.  Will  the 
world  ever  be  so  decayed  that  spring  may  not  renew  its 


B  UDS  AND  BIRD-  VOICES,  125 

greenness?  Can  man  be  so  dismally  age-stricken  that  no 
faintest  sunshine  of  his  youth  may  revisit  him  once  a  year? 
It  is  impossible.  The  moss  on  our  time-worn  mansion 
brightens  into  beauty,  the  good  old  pastor  who  once  dwelt 
here  renewed  his  prime,  regained  his  boyhood,  in  the 
genial  breezes  of  his  ninetieth  spring.  Alas  for  the  worn 
and  heavy  soul  if,  whether  in  youth  or  age  it  have  outlived 
its  privilege  of  spring-time  sprightliness!  From  such  a 
soul  the  world  must  hope  no  reformation  of  its  evil — no 
sympathy  with  the  lofty  faith  and  gallant  struggles  of 
those  who  contend  in  its  behalf.  Summer  works  in  the 
present  and  thinks  not  of  the  future;  autumn  is  a  rich 
conservative;  winter  has  utterly  lost  its  faith,  and  clings 
tremulously  to  the  remembrance  of  what  has  been;  but 
spring,  with  its  outgushing  life,  is  the  true  type  of  the 
movement. 


126  MOB8B8  FROM  AN  OLD,  MANSE. 


MONSIEUR  DU  MIROIR. 


THAN  the  gentleman  above  named  there  is  nobody  in 
the  whole  circle  of  my  acquaintance  whom  I  have  more  at 
tentively  studied,  yet  of  whom  I  have  less  real  knowledge 
beneath  the  surface  which  it  pleases  him  to  present.  Being 
anxious  to  discover  who  and  what  he  really  is  and  how  con 
nected  with  me,  and  what  are  to  be  the  results  to  him  and 
to  myself  of  the  joint  interest  which,  without  any  choice  on 
my  part,  seems  to  be  permanently  established  between  us, 
and  incited,  furthermore,  by  the  propensities  of  a  student 
of  human  nature,  though  doubtful  whether  M.  du  Miroir 
have  aught  of  humanity  but  the  figure,  I  have  determined 
to  place  a  few  of  his  remarkable  points  before  the  public, 
hoping  to  be  favored  with  some  clue  to  the  explanation  of 
his  character.  Nor  let  the  reader  condemn  any  part  of  the 
narrative  as  frivolous,  since  a  subject  of  such  grave  reflec 
tion  diffuses  its  importance  through  the  minutest  particu 
lars,  and  there  is  no  judging  beforehand  what  odd  little  cir 
cumstance  may  do  the  office  of  a  blind  man's  dog  among 
the  perplexities  of  this  dark  investigation.  And,  however 
extraordinary,  marvelous,  preternatural  and  utterly  incred 
ible  some  of  the  meditated  disclosures  may  appear,  I  pledge 
my  honor  to  maintain  as  sacred  a  regard  to  fact  as  if  my 
testimony  were  given  on  oath  and  involved  the  dearest  in 
terests  of  the  personage  in  question.  Not  that  there  is 
matter  for  a  criminal  accusation  against  M.  du  Miroir,  nor 
am  I  the  man  to  bring  it  forward  if  there  were.  The  chief 
that  I  complain  of  is  his  impenetrable  mystery,  which  is 
no  better  than  nonsense  if  it  conceal  anything  good,  and 
much  worse  in  the  contrary  case. 

But  if  undue  partialities  could  be  supposed  to  influence 
me,  M.  du  Miroir  might  hope  to  profit  rather  than  to  suffer 
by  them,  for  in  the  whole  of  our  long  intercourse  we  have 


MONSIEUR  D  U  MIROin.  127 

seldom  had  the  slightest  disagreement;  and,  moreover, 
there  are  reasons  for  supposing  him  a  near  relative  of  mine, 
and,  consequently,  entitled  to  the  best  word  that  I  can  give 
him.  He  bears  indisputably  a  strong  personal  resemblance 
to  myself,  and  generally  put  on  mourning  at  the  funerals 
of  the  family.  On  the  other  hand,  his  name  would  indi 
cate  a  French  descent;  in  which  case,  infinitely  preferring 
that  my  own  blood  should  flow  from  a  bold  British  and  pure 
Puritan  source,  I  beg  leave  to  disclaim  all  kindred  with  M. 
du  Miroir.  Some  genealogists  trace  his  origin  to  Spain, 
and  dub  him  a  knight  of  the  Order  of  the  Caballeros  de 
los  Espejos,  one  of  whom  was  overthrown  by  Don  Quixote. 
But  what  says  M.  du  Miroir  himself  of  his  paternity  and 
his  fatherland?  Xot  a  word  did  he  ever  say  about  the 
matter,  and  herein,  perhaps,  lies  one  of  his  most  especial 
reasons  for  maintaining  such  a  vexatious  mystery — that  he 
lacks  the  faculty  of  speech  to  expound  it.  His  lips  are 
sometimes  seen  to  move,  his  eyes  and  countenance  are  alive 
with  shifting  expression,  as  if  corresponding  by  visible 
hieroglyphics  to  his  modulated  breath,  and  anon  he  will 
seem  to  pause  with  as  satisfied  an  air  as  if  he  had  been  talk 
ing  excellent  sense.  Good  sense  or  bad,  M.  du  Miroir  is 
the  sole  judge  of  his  own  conversational  powers,  never  hav 
ing  whispered  so  much  as  a  syllable  that  reached  the  ears  of 
any  other  auditor.  Is  he  really  dumb,  or  is  all  the  world 
deaf?  or  is  it  merely  a  piece  of  my  friend's  waggery,  meant 
for  nothing  but  to  make  fools  of  us?  If  so,  he  has  the  joke 
all  to  himself. 

This  dumb  devil  which  possesses  M.  du  Miroir  is,  I  am 
persuaded,  the  sole  reason  that  he  does  not  make  me  the 
most  flattering  protestations  of  friendship.  In  many  par 
ticulars — indeed,  as  to  all  his  cognizable  and  not  preter 
natural  points,  except  that  once  in  a  great  while  I  speak  a 
word  or  two — there  exists  the  greatest  apparent  sympathy 
between  us.  Such  is  his  confidence  in  my  taste  that  he 
goes  astray  from  the  general  fashion  and  copies  all  his 
dresses  after  mine.  I  never  try  on  a  new  garment  without 
expecting  to  meet  M.  du  Miroir  in  one  of  the  same  pattern. 
He  has  duplicates  of  all  my  waistcoats  and  cravats,  shirt- 
bosoms  of  precisely  a  similar  plait,  and  an  old  coat  for  pri 
vate  wear  manufactured,  I  suspect,  by  a  Chinese  tailor  in 
exact  imitation  of  a  beloved  old  coat  of  mine,  with  a  fac 
simile,  stitch  by  stitch,  of  a  patch  upon  the  elbow.  In 


128  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

truth  the  singular  and  minute  coincidences  that  occur  both 
in  the  accidents  of  the  passing  day  and  the  serious  events 
of  our  lives  remind  me  of  those  doubtful  legends  of  lovers 
or  twin-children,  twins  of  fate,  who  have  lived  and  enjoyed, 
suffered  and  died  in  unison,  each  faithfully  repeating  the 
least  tremor  of  the  other's  breath,  though  separated  by  vast 
tracts  of  sea  and  land. 

Strange  to  say,  my  incomrnodities  belong  equally  to  my 
companion,  though  the  burden  is  nowise  alleviated  by  his 
participation.  The  other  morning,  after  a  night  of  torment 
from  the  toothache,  I  met  M.  du  Miroir  with  such  a  swollen 
anguish  in  his  cheek  that  my  own  pangs  were  redoubled,  as 
were  also  his,  if  I  might  judge  by  a  fresh  contortion  of  his 
visage.  All  the  inequalities  of  my  spirits  are  communicated 
to  him,  causing  the  unfortunate  M.  du  Miroir  to  mope  and 
scowl  through  a  whole  summer's  day,  or  to  laugh  as  long, 
for  no  better  reason  than  the  gay  or  gloomy  crochets  of  my 
brain.  Once  we  were  joint-sufferers  of  a  three  months' 
sickness,  and  met  like  mutual  ghosts  in  the  first  days  of 
convalesence.  Whenever  I  have  been  in  love,  M.  du  Mi 
roir  has  looked  passionate  and  tender,  and  never  did  my 
mistress  discard  rnebut  this  too  susceptible  gentleman  grew 
lackadaisical.  His  temper  also  rises  to  blood  heat,  fever 
heat  or  boiling-water  heat  according  to  the  measure  of  any 
wrong  which  might  seem  to  have  fallen  entirely  on  my 
self.  I  have  sometimes  been  calmed  down  by  the  sight  of  my 
own  inordinate  wrath  depicted  on  his  frowning  brow.  Yet, 
however,  prompt  in  taking  up  my  quarrels,  I  cannot  call  to 
mind  that  he  ever  struck  a  downright  blow  in  my  behalf, 
nor,  in  fact,  do  I  perceive  that  any  real  and  tangible  good 
has  resulted  from  his  constant  interference  in  my  affairs; 
so  that  in  my  distrustful  moods  I  am  apt  to  suspect  M.  du 
Miroir's  sympathy  to  be  mere  outward  show,  not  a  whit 
better  nor  worse  than  other  people's  sympathy.  Neverthe 
less,  as  mortal  man  must  have  something  in  the  guise  of 
sympathy — and  whether  the  true  metal  or  merely  copper- 
washed  is  of  less  moment — I  choose  rather  to  content  my 
self  with  M.  du  Miroir's,  such  as  it  is,  than  to  seek  the 
sterling  coin,  and  perhaps  miss  even  the  counterfeit. 

In  my  age  of  vanities  I  have  often  seen  him  in  the  ball 
room,  and  might  again  were  I  to  seek  him  there.  We  have 
encountered  each  other  at  the  Tremont  Theater,  where,  how 
ever,  he  took  his  seat  neither  in  the  dress-circle,  pit  nor  up- 


MONSIEUR  DU  MIR01R.  129 

per  regions,  nor  threw  a  single  glance  at  the  stage,  though 
the  brightest  star — even  Fanny  Kenible  herself — might  be 
culminating  there.  No  ;  this  whimsical  friend  of  mine 
chose  to  linger  in  the  saloon,  near  one  of  the  large  looking- 
glasses  which  throw  back  their  pictures  of  the  illuminated 
room.  He  is  so  full  of  these  unaccountable  eccentricities 
that  I  never  like  to  notice  M.  du  Miroir,  nor  to  acknowl 
edge  the  slightest  connection  with  him,  in  places  of  public 
resort,  lie,  however,  has  no  scruple  about  claiming  my 
acquaintance  even  when  his  common  sense — if  he  had  any 
—might  teach  him  that  I  would  as  willingly  exchange  a 
nod  with  the  Old  Nick.  It  was  but  the  other  day  that  he 
got  into  a  large  brass  kettle  at  the  entrance  of  a  hardware 
store,  and  thrust  his  head  the  moment  afterward  into  a 
bright  new  warming-pan,  whence  he  gave  me  a  most  mer 
ciless  look  of  recognition.  lie  smiled,  and  so, did  I;  but 
these  childish  tricks  make  decent  people  rather  shy  of  M. 
du  Miroir,  and  subject  him  to  more  dead  cuts  than  any 
other  gentleman  in  town. 

One  of  this  singular  person's  most  remarkable  peculiari 
ties  is  his  fondness  fcr  water,  wherein  he  excels  any  tem 
perance  man  whatever.  His  pleasure,  it  must  be  owned, 
is  not  so  much  to  drink  it  (in  which  respect  a  very  moder 
ate  quantity  will  answer  his  occasions)  as  to  souse  himself 
over  head  and  ears  wherever  he  may  meet  with  it.  Perhaps 
he  is  a  merman  or  born  of  a  mermaid's  marriage  with  a 
mortal,  and  thus  amphibious  by  hereditary  right,  like  the 
children  which  the  old  river-deities  or  nymphs  of  fount 
ains  gave  to  earthly  love.  When  no  cleaner  bathing-place 
happened  to  be  at  hand,  I  have  seen  the  foolish  fellow  in  a 
horse-pond.  Sometimes  he  refreshes  himself  in  the  trough 
of  a  town-pump,  without  caring  what  the  people  think 
about  him.  Often,  while  carefully  picking  my  way  along 
the  street  after  a  heavy  shower,  I  have  been  scandalized  to 
see  M.  du  Miroir,  in  full  dress,  paddling  from  one 
mud-puddle  to  another  and  plunging  into  the  filthy  depths 
of  each.  Seldom  have  I  peeped  into  a  well  without  dis 
cerning  this  ridiculous  gentleman  at  the  bottom,  whence 
he  gazes  up  as  through  a  long  telescopic  tube,  and  prob 
ably  makes  discoveries  among  the  stars  by  daylight. 
Wandering  along  the  lonesome  paths  or  in  pathless  forests, 
when  I  have  come  to  virgin-fountains  of  which  it  would 
have  been  pleasant  to  deem  myself  the  first  discoverer,  I 


130  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

have  started  to  find  M.  du  Miroir  there  before  me. 
The  solitude  seemed  lonelier  for  his  presence.  I  have 
leaned  from  a  precipice  that  frowns  over  Lake  George — 
which  the  French  called  Nature's  font  of  sacramental 
water,  and  nsed  it  in  their  log  churches  here  and  their 
cathedrals  beyond  the  sea — and  seen  him  far  below  in  that 
pure  element.  At  Niagara,  too,  where  I  would  gladly  have 
forgotten  both  myself  and  him,  I  could  not  help  observing 
my  companion  in  the  smooth  water  on  the  very  verge  of  the 
cataract,  just  above  the  Table  ll<nk.  Were  I  to  reach  the 
sources  of  the  Nile,  I  should  expect  to  meet  him  there. 
Unless  he  be  another  Lado  whose  garments  the  depths  of 
ocean  could  not  moisten,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  he 
keeps  himself  in  any  decent  pickle,  though  I  am  bound  to 
confess  that  his  clothes  seem  always  as  dry  and  comfortable 
as  my  own.  But,  as  a  friend,  I  could  wish  that  he  would 
not  so  often  expose  himself  in  liquor. 

All  that  1  ha\e  hitherto  related  may  be  classed  among 
those  little  personal  oddities  which  agreeably  diversify  the 
surface  of  society,  and,  though  they  may  sometimes  annoy 
us,  yet  keep  our  daily  intercourse  fresher  and  livelier  than 
if  they  were  done  away.  By  an  occasional  hint,  however, 
I  have  endeavored  to  pave  the  way  for  stranger  things  to 
come,  which  had  they  been  disclosed  at  once  M.  du  Miroir 
might  have  been  deemed  a  shadow,  and  myself  a  person  of 
no  veracity,  and  this  truthful  history  a  fabulous  legend. 
But  now  that  the  reader  knows  me  worthy  of  his  confidence 
1  will  begin  to  make  him  stare. 

To  speak  frankly,  then,  I  could  bring  the  most  astound 
ing  proofs  that  M.  du  Miroir  is  at  least  a  conjurer,  if  not 
one  of  that  unearthly  tribe  with  which  conjurers  deal.  lie 
has  inscrutable  methods  of  conveying  himself  from  place 
to  place  with  the  rapidity  of  the  swiftest  steamboat  or  rail- 
car.  Brick  walls  and  oaken  doors  and  iron  bolts  are  no 
impediment  to  his  passage.  Here  in  my  chamber,  for  in 
stance,  as  the  evening  deepens  into  night,  I  sit  alone,  the 
key  turned  and  withdrawn  from  the  lock,  the  key-hole 
stuffed  with  paper  to  keep  out  a  peevish  little  blast  of 
wind.  Yet,  lonely  as  I  seem,  were  I  to  lift  one  of  the 
lamps  and  step  five  paces  eastward,  M.  du  Miroir  would  be 
sure  to  meet  me  with  a  lamp  also  in  his  hand.  And  were 
I  to  take  the  stage-coach  to-morrow  without  giving  him 
the  least  hint  of  my  design,  and  post  onward  till  the 


MONSIKUR  D  U  MIROIR.  131 

week's  end,  at  whatever  hotel  I  might  find  myself  I  should 
expect  to  share  my  private  apartment  with  this  inevitable 
M.  du  Miroir.  Or  out  of  a  mere  wayward  fantasy  were  I 
to  go  by  moonlight  and  stand  beside  the  stone  fount  of  the 
IShaker  Spring  at  Canterbury,  M.  du  Miroir  would  set 
forth  on  the  same  fool's  errand,  and  would  not  fail  to  meet 
me  there. 

Shall  I  heighten  the  reader's  wonder  ?  While  writing 
these  latter  sentences  I  happened  to  glance  toward  the 
large  round  globe  of  one  of  the  brass  andirons  and,  lo  !  a 
miniature  apparition  of  M.  du  Miroir,  with  his  face  wid 
ened  and  grotesquely  contorted,  as  if  he  were  making  fun 
of  my  amazement.  But  he  has  played  so  many  of  these 
jokes  that  they  begin  to  lose  their  effect.  Once— presump 
tuous  that  he  was — he  stole  into  the  heaven  of  a  young 
lady's  eyes;  so  that  while  I  gazed  and  was  dreaming  only 
of  herself  I  found  him  also  in  my  dream.  Years  have  so 
changed  him  since  that  he  need  never  hope  to  enter  those 
heavenly  orbs  again. 

From  these  veritable  statements  it  will  be  readily  con 
cluded  that  had  M.  du  Miroir  played  such  pranks  in  old 
witch-times  matters  might  have  gone  hard  with  him — at 
least,  if  the  constable  and  posse  comitatus  could  have  exe 
cuted  a  warrant  or  the  jailer  had  been  cunning  enough  to 
keep  him.  But  it  has  often  occurred  to  me  as  a  very  sin 
gular  circumstance  and  as  betokening  either  a  tempera 
ment  morbidly  suspicious  or  some  weighty  cause  of  appre 
hension,  that  he  never  trusts  himself  within  the  grasp 
even  of  his  most  intimate  friend.  If  you  step  forward  to 
meet  him,  he  readily  advances;  if  you  offer  him  your  hand 
he  extends  his  own  with  an  air  of  the  utmost  frankness, 
but,  though  you  calculate  upon  a  hearty  shake,  you  do 
not  get  hold  of  his  little  finger.  Ah  !  this  M.  du  Miroir 
is  a  slippery  fellow. 

These,  truly,  are  matters  of  special  admiration.  After 
vainly  endeavoring  by  the  strenuous  exertion  of  my  own 
wits  to  gain  a  satisfactory  insight  into  the  character  of  M. 
du  Miroir.  I  had  recourse  to  certain  wise  men  and  also  to 
books  of  abstruse  philosophy,  seeking  who  it  was  that 
haunted  me,  and  why.  I  heard  long  lectures  and  read  huge 
volumes  with  little  profit  beyond  the  knowledge  that  many 
former  instances  are  recorded  in  successive  ages  of  similar 
connections  between  ordinary  mortals  and  beings  possess- 


132  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  M ANISE. 

ing  the  attributes  of  M.  du  Miroir.  Some  now  alive, 
perhaps,,  besides  myself,  have  such  attendants.  Would 
that  M.  du  Miroir  could  be  persuaded  to  transfer  his  at 
tachment  to  one  of  those  and  allow  some  other  of  his  race 
to  assume  the  situation  that  he  now  holds  in  regard  to  me  ! 
If  I  must  needs  have  so  intrusive  an  intimate,  who  stares 
me  in  the  face  in  my  closest  privacy  and  follows  me  even 
to  my  bed-chamber,  I  should  prefer — scandal  apart — the 
laughing  bloom  of  a  young  girl  to  the  dark  and  bearded 
gravity  of  my  present  companion.  But  such  desires  are 
never  to  be  gratified.  Though  the  members  of  M.  du 
Miroir's  family  have  been  accused — perhaps  unjustly — of 
visiting  their  friends  often  in  splendid  halls  and  seldom  in 
darksome  dungeons,  yet  they  exhibit  a  rare  constancy  to 
the  objects  of  their  first  attachment,  however  unlovely  in 
person  or  unamiable  in  disposition — however  unfortunate, 
or  even  infamous  and  deserted  by  all  the  world  besides. 
So  will  it  be  with  my  associate.  Our  fates  appear  insep 
arably  blended.  It  is  my  belief,  as  I  find  him  mingling 
with  my  earliest  recollections,  that  we  came  into  existence 
together,  as  my  shadow  follows  me  into  the  sunshine,  and 
that,  hereafter  as  heretofore,  the  brightness  or  gloom  of 
my  fortunes  will  shine  upon  or  darken  the  face  of  M.  du 
Miroir.  As  we  have  been  young  together,  and  as  it  is  now 
near  the  summer  noon  with  both  of  us,  so,  if  long  life  be 
granted,  shall  each  count  his  own  wrinkles  on  the  other's 
brow  and  his  white  hairs  on  the  other's  head. 

And  when  the  coffin-lid  shall  have  closed  over  me  and 
that  face  and  form  which  more  truly  than  the  lover  swears 
it  to  his  beloved  are  the  sole  light  of  his  existence — when 
they  shall  be  laid  in  that  dark  chamber  whither  his  swift 
and  secret  footsteps  cannot  bring  him — then  what  is  to  be 
come  of  poor  M.  du  Miroir?  Will  he  have  the  fortitude, 
with  my  other  friends,  to  take  a  last  look  at  my  pale  coun 
tenance?  Will  he  walk  foremost  in  the  funeral  train  ? 
Will  he  come  often  and  haunt  around  my  grave  and  weed 
away  the  nettles  and  plant  flowers  amid  the  verdure  and 
scrape  the  moss  out  of  the  letters  of  my  burial-stone?  Will 
he  linger  where  I  have  lived,  to  remind  the  neglectful  world 
of  one  who  staked  much  to  win  a  name,  but  will  not  then 
care  whether  he  lost  or  won  ? 

Not  thus  will  he  prove  his  deep  fidelity.  Oh,  what  terror 
if  this  friend  of  mine,  after  our  last  farewell,  should  step 


MONSIEUR  DU  MIROIR.  133 

into  the  crowded  street,  or  roam  along  our  old  frequented 
path  by  the  still  waters,  or  sit  down  in  the  domestic  circle, 
where  our  faces  are  most  familiar  and  beloved!  No;  but 
when  the  rays  of  heaven  shall  bless  me  no  more,  nor  the 
thoughtful  lamplight  gleam  upon  my  studies,  nor  the  cheer 
ful  fireside  gladden  the  meditative  man,  then,  his  task  ful 
filled,  shall  this  mysterious  being  vanish  from  the  earth  for 
ever.  He  will  pass  to  the  dark  realm  of  Nothingness,  but 
will  not  find  me  there. 

There  is  something  fearful  in  bearing  such  a  relation  to 
a  creature  so  imperfectly  known,  and  in  the  idea  that  to  a 
certain  extent  all  which  concerns  myself  will  be  reflected 
in  its  consequences  upon  him.  When  we  feel  that  another 
is  to  share  the  selfsame  fortune  with  ourselves,  we  judge 
more  severely  of  our  prospects  and  withhold  our  confidence 
from  that  delusive  magic  which  appears  to  shed  an  infalli 
bility  of  happiness  over  our  own  pathway. 

Of  late  years,  indeed,  there  has  been  much  to  sadden  my 
intercourse  with  M.  du  Miroir.  Had  not  our  union  been  a 
necessary  condition  of  our  life,  we  must  have  been  estranged 
ere  now.  In  early  youth,  when  my  affections  were  warm 
and  free,  I  loved  him  well,  and  could  always  spend  a  pleas 
ant  hour  in  his  society,  chiefly  because  it  gave  me  an  ex 
cellent  opinion  of  myself.  Speechless  as  he  was,  M.  du 
Miroir  had  then  a  most  agreeable  way  of  calling  me  a 
handsome  fellow,  and  I,  of  course,  returned  the  compliment; 
so  that  the  more  we  kept  each  other's  company,  the  greater 
coxcombs  we  mutually  grew.  But  neither  of  us  need  ap 
prehend  any  such  misfortune  now.  When  we  chance  to 
meet — for  it  is  chance  oftener  than  design — each  glances 
sadly  at  the  other's  forehead,  dreading  wrinkles  there;  and 
at  our  temples,  whence  the  hair  is  thinning  away  too  early; 
and  at  the  sunken  eyes,  which  no  longer  shed  a  gladsome 
light  over  the  whole  face.  I  involuntarily  peruse  him  as  a 
record  of  my  heavy  youth,  which  has  been  wasted  in  slug 
gishness  for  lack  of  hope  and  impulse,  or  equally  thrown 
away  in  toil  that  had  no  wise  motive  and  has  accomplished 
no  good  end.  I  perceive  that  the  tranquil  gloom  of  a  dis 
appointed  soul  has  darkened  through  his  countenance, 
where  the  blackness  of  the  future  seems  to  mingle  with  the 
shadows  of  the  past,  giving  him  the  aspect  of  a  fated  man. 
Js  it  too  wild  a  thought  that  my  fate  may  have  assumed  this 
image  of  myself,  and  therefore  haunts  me  with  such  inevit- 


134  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE, 

able  pertinacity,  originating  every  act  which  it  appears  to 
imitate,  Avhile  it  deludes  me  by  pretending  to  share  the 
events  of  which  it  is  merely  the  emblem  and  the  prophecy? 
I  must  banish  this  idea,  or  it  will  throw  too  deep  an  awe 
round  my  companion.  At  our  next  meeting,  esDecially  if 
it  be  at  midnight  or  in  solitude,  I  fear  that  I  shall  glance 
aside  and  shudder;  in  which  case,  as  M.  du  Miroir  is  ex 
tremely  sensitive  to  ill-treatment,  he  also  will  avert  his 
eyes  and  express  horror  or  disgust. 

But  no!  this  is  unworthy  of  me.  As  of  old  I  sought  his 
society  for  the  bewitching  dreams  of  woman's  love  which 
he  inspired  and  because  I  fancied  a  bright  fortune  in  his 
aspect,  so  now  will  I  hold  daily  and  long  communion  with 
him  for  the  sake  of  the  stern  lessons  that  he  will  teach  my 
manhood.  With  folded  arms  we  will  sit  face  to  face  and 
lengthen  out  our  silent  converse  till  a  wiser  cheerfulness 
shall  have  been  wrought  from  the  very  texture  of  despond 
ency.  He  will  say — perhaps  indignantly — that  it  befits 
only  him  to  mourn  for  the  decay  of  outward  grace 
which,  while  he  possessed  it,  was  his  all.  But  have  not 
you,  he  will  ask,  a  treasure  in  reserve  to  which  every  year 
may  add  far  more  value  than  age,  or  death  itself,  can 
snatch  from  that  miserable  clay?  He  will  tell  me  that 
though  the  bloom  of  life  has  been  nipped  with  a  frost,  yet 
the  soul  must  not  sit  shivering  in  its  cell,  but  bestir  itself 
manfully  and  kindle  a  genial  warmth  from  its  own  exer 
cise  against  the  autumnal  and  the  wintry  atmosphere. 
And  I,  in  return,  will  bid  him  be  of  good  cheer,  nor  take 
it  amiss  that  I  must  blanch  his  locks  and  wrinkle  him  up 
like  a  wilted  apple,  since  it  shall  be  my  endeavor  so  to 
beautify  his  face  with  intellect  and  mild  benevolence  that 
he  shall  profit  immensely  by  the  change.  But  here  a 
smile  will  glimmer  somewhat  sadly  over  M.  du  Miroir's 
visage. 

When  this  subject  shall  have  been  sufficiently  discussed, 
we  may  take  up  others  as  important.  Reflecting  upon  his 
power  of  following  me  to  the  remotest  regions  and  into  the 
deepest  privacy,  1  will  compare  the  attempt  to  escape  him 
to  the  hopeless  race  that  men  sometimes  run  with  memory 
or  their  own  hearts  or  their  moral  selves,  which,  though 
burdened  with  cares  enough  to  crush  an  elephant,  will 
never  be  one  step  behind.  I  will  be  self-contemplative  as 
nature  bids  me  and  make  him  the  picture  or  visible  type 


MONSIEUR  DU  MIROIR.  135 

of  what  I  muse  upon,  that  my  mind  may  not  wander  so 
vaguely  as  heretofore,  chasing  its  own  shadow  through  a 
chaos  and  catching  only  the  monsters  that  abide  there. 
Then  will  we  turn  our  thoughts  to  the  spiritual  world  of 
the  reality  of  which  my  companions  shall  furnish  me  an 
illustration.,  if  not  an  argument.  For,  as  we  have  only  the 
testimony  of  the  eye  to  M.  du  Miroir's  existence,  while  all 
the  other  senses  would  fail  to  inform  us  that  such  a  figure 
stands  within  arm's  length,  wherefore  should  there  not  be 
beings  innumerable  close  beside  us  and  filling  heaven  and 
earth  with  their  multitude,  yet  of  whom  no  corporeal  per 
ception  can  take  cognizance?  A  blind  man  might  as  rea 
sonably  deny  that  M.  du  Miroir  exists  as  we,  because  the 
Creator  has  hitherto  withheld  the  spiritual  perception,  can 
therefore  contend  that  there  are  no  spirits.  Oh,  there  are! 
And  at  this  moment,  when  the  subject  of  which  I  write 
has  grown  strong  within  me  and  surrounded  itself  with 
those  solemn  and  awful  associations  Avhich  might  have 
seemed  most  alien  to  it,  I  could  fancy  that  M.  du  Miroir 
himself  is  a  wanderer  from  the  spiritual  world  with  noth 
ing  human  except  his  illusive  garment  of  visibility.  Me- 
thinks  I  should  tremble  now  were  his  wizard  power  of 
gliding  through  all  impediments  in  search  of  me  to  place 
him  suddenly  before  my  eyes. 

Ha!  What  is  yonder?  Shape  of  mystery,  did  the 
tremor  of  my  heart-strings  vibrate  to  thine  own  and  call 
thee  from  thy  home  among  the  dancers  of  the  Northern 
Lights  and  shadows  flung  from  departed  sunshine  and 
giant  specters  that  appear  on  clouds  at  daybreak  and 
affright  the  climber  of  the  Alps?  In  truth,  it  startled  me 
as  I  threw  a  wary  glance  eastward  across  the  chamber  to 
discern  an  unbidden  guest  with  his  eyes  bent  on  mine. 
The  identical  M.  dn  Miroir!  Still,  there  he  sits  and  re 
turns  my  gaze  with  as  much  of  awe  and  curiosity  as  if  he, 
too,  had  spent  a  solitary  evening  in  fantastic  musings  and 
made  me  his  theme.  So  inimitably  does  he  counterfeit 
that  I  could  almost  doubt  which  of  us  is  the  visionary 
form,  or  whether  each  be  not  the  other's  mystery  and  both 
twin-brethren  of  one  fate  in  mutually  reflected  spheres. 
Oh,  friend,  canst  thou  not  hear  and  answer  me?  Break 
down  the  barrier  between  us!  Grasp  my  hand!  Speak! 
Listen!  A  few  words,  perhaps,  might  satisfy  the  feverish 
yearning  of  my  soul  for  some  master-thought  that  should 


136  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

guide  me  through  this  labyrinth  of  life,  teaching  where 
fore  I  was  born  and  how  to  do  my  task  on  earth  and  what 
is  death.  Alas!  Even  that  unreal  image  should  forget  to 
ape  me  and  smile  at  these  vain  questions.  Thus  do 
mortals  deify,  as  it  were,  a  mere  shadow  of  themselves,  a 
specter  of  human  reason,  and  ask  of  that  to  unveil  the 
mysteries  which  divine  Intelligence  has  revealed  so  far  as 
needful  to  our  guidance  and  hid  the  rest. 

Farewell,  Monsieur  du  Miroir!  Of  you,  perhaps,  as  of 
many  men,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  you  are  the  wiser, 
though  your  whole  business  is  reflection. 


THE  HALL  OF  FANTASY.  137 


THE  HALL  OF  FANTASY. 


IT  HAS  happened  to  me  on  various  occasions  to  find 
myself  in  a  certain  edifice  which  would  appear  to  have 
some  of  the  characteristics  of  a  public  exchange.  Its  in 
terior  is  a  spacious  hall  with  a  pavement  of  white  marble. 
Overhead  is  a  lofty  dome  supported  by  long  rows  of  pillars 
of  fantastic  architecture,  the  idea  of  which  was  probably 
taken  from  the  Moorish  ruins  of  the  Alhambra,  or  perhaps 
from  some  enchanted  editice  in  the  Arabian  tales.  The 
windows  of  this  hall  have  a  breadth  and  grandeur  of  design 
and  an  elaborateness  of  workmanship  that  have  nowhere 
been  equaled  except  in  the  Gothic  cathedrals  of  the  old 
world.  Like  their  prototypes.,  too,  they  admit  the  light  of 
heaven  only  through  stained  and  pictured  glass,  thus  filling 
the  hall  with  many  colored  radiance  and  painting  its 
marble  floor  with  beautiful  or  grotesque  designs;  so  that 
its  inmates  breathe,  as  it  were,  a  visionary  atmosphere  and 
tread  upon  the  fantasies  of  poetic  minds.  These  peculiar 
ities,  combining  a  wilder  mixture  of  styles  than  even  an 
American  architect  usually  recognizes  as  allowable — 
Grecian,  Gothic,  Oriental  and  nondescript — cause  the 
whole  edifice  to  give  the  impression  of  a  dream  which 
might  be  dissipated  and  shattered  to  fragments  by  merely 
stamping  the  foot  upon  the  pavement.  Yet,  with  such 
modifications  and  repairs  as  successive  ages  demand,  the 
Hall  of  Fantasy  is  likely  to  endure  longer  than  the  most 
substantial  structure  that  ever  cumbered  the  earth. 

It  is  not  at  all  times  that  one  can  gain  admittance  into 
this  edifice,  although  most  persons  enter  it  at  some  period 
or  other  of  their  lives — if  not  in  their  waking  moments, 
then  by  the  universal  passport  of  a  dream.  At  my  last 
visit  I  wandered  thither  unawares  while  my  mind  was  busy 


138  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

with  an  idle  tale,  and  was  startled  by  the  throng  of  people 
who  seemed  suddenly  to  rise  np  around  me. 

"  Bless  me!  where  am  I?"  cried  I,  with  but  a  dim 
recognition  of  the  place. 

"  You  are  in  a  spot,"  said  a  friend  who  chanced  to  be 
near  at  hand,  "which  occupies  in  the  world  of  Fancy  the 
same  position  which  the  Bourse,  the  Rialto  and  the  Ex 
change  do  in  the  commercial  world.  All  who  have  affairs 
in  that  mystic  region  which  lies  above,  below  or  beyond 
the  actual,  may  here  meet  and  talk  over  the  business  of 
their  dreams." 

"  It  is  a  noble  hall,"  observed  I. 

"  Yes,"  he  replied,  "yet  we  see  but  a  small  portion  of 
the  edifice.  In  its  upper  stories  are  said  to  be  apartments 
where  the  inhabitants  of  earth  may  hold  converse  with 
those  of  the  moon,  and  beneath  our  feet  are  gloomy  cells 
which  communicate  with  the  infernal  regions,  and  where 
monsters  and  chimeras  are  kept  in  confinement  and  fed 
with  all  unwholesorneness." 

In  niches  and  on  pedestals  around  about  the  hall  stood 
the  statues  or  busts  of  men  who  in  every  age  have  been 
rulers  and  demigods  in  the  realms  of  imagination  and  its 
kindred  regions.  The  grand  old  countenance  of  Homer, 
the  shrunken  and  decrepit  form,  but  vivid  face,  of  ^Esop, 
the  dark  presence  of  Dante,  the  wild  Ariosto,  Rabelais' 
smile  of  deep- wrought  mirth,  the  profound,  pathetic  hu 
mor  of  Cervantes,  the  all-glorious  Shakspeare,  Spenser, 
meet  guest  for  an  allegoric  structure,  the  severe  divinity 
of  Milton  and  Bunyan,  molded  of  homeliest  clay,  but  in 
stinct  with  celestial  fire — were  those  that  chiefly  attracted 
my  eye.  Fielding,  Richardson  and  Scott  occupied  con 
spicuous  pedestals.  In  an  obscure  and  shadowy  niche  was 
deposited  the  bust  of  our  countryman,  the  author  of 
"  Arthur  Mervyn." 

"  Besides  these  indestructible  memorials  of  real  genius," 
remarked  my  companion,  "  each  century  has  erected 
statues  of  its  own  ephemeral  favorites  in  wood." 

"  I  observe  a  few  crumbling  relics  of  such,"  said  I. 
"  But  ever  and  anon,  I  suppose,  Oblivion. comes  with  her 
huge  broom  and  sweeps  them  all  from  the  marble  floor. 
But  such  will  never  be  the  fate  of  this  fine  statue  of 
Goethe." 

"  Nor  of  that  next  to  it,  Ernanuel  Swedenborg,"  said 


THE  HALL  OF  FANTASY.  130 

he.  "Were  ever  two  men  of  transcendent  imagination 
more  unlike?  " 

In  the  center  of  the  hall  springs  an  ornamental  fountain, 
the  water  of  which  continually  throws  itself  into  new 
shapes  and  snatches  the  most  diversified  hues  from  the 
stained  atmosphere  around.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive 
what  a  strange  vivacity  is  imparted  to  the  scene  by  the 
magic  dance  of  this  fountain,  with  its  endless  transforma 
tions  in  which  the  imaginative  beholder  may  discern  what 
form  he  will.  The  water  is  supposed  by  some  to  flow  from 
the  same  source  as  the  Castalian  spring,  and  is  extolled  by 
other  as  uniting  the  virtues  of  the  Fountain  of  Youth 
with  those  of  many  other  enchanted  wells  long  celebrated 
in  tale  and  song.  Having  never  tasted  it,  I  can  bear  no 
testimony  to  its  quality." 

"Did  you  ever  drink  this  water? "  I  inquired  of  my 
friend. 

"  A  few  sips  now  and  then,"  answered  he.  "  But  there 
are  men  here  who  make  it  their  constant  beverage — or,  at 
least,  have  the  credit  of  doing  so.  In  some  instances  it  is 
known  to  have  intoxicating  qualities." 

"  Pray  let  us  look  at  these  water-drinkers,"  said  I. 

So  we  passed  among  the  fantastic  pillars  till  we  came  to 
a  spot  where  a  number  of  persons  were  clustered  together  in 
the  light  of  one  of  the  great  stained  windows,  which  seemed 
to  glorify  the  whole  group  as  well  as  the  marble  that  they 
trod  on.  Most  of  them  were  men  of  broad  foreheads,  med 
itative  countenances  and  thoughtful  inward  eyes,  yet  it  re 
quired  but  a  trifle  to  summon  up  mirth,  peeping  out  from 
the  very  midst  of  grave  and  lofty  musings.  Some  strode 
about  or  leaned  against  the  pillars  of  the  hall  alone  and  in 
silence;  their  faces  wore  a  rapt  expression,  as  if  sweet 
music  were  in  the  air  around  ,  them,  or  as  if  their  inmost 
souls  were  about  to  float  away  in  song.  One  or  two,  per 
haps,  stole  a  glance  at  the  by-standers  to  watch  if  their 
poetic  absorption  were  observed.  Others  stood  talking  in 
groups  with  a  liveliness  of  expression,  a  ready  smile  and 
a  light  intellectual  laughter  which  showed  how  rapidly 
the  shafts  of  wit  were  glancing  to  and  fro  among  them. 

A  few  held  higher  converse  which  caused  their  calm  and 
melancholy  souls  to  beam  moonlight  from  their  eyes.  As  I 
lingered  near  them — for  I  felt  an  inward  attraction  toward 
these  men,  as  if  the  sympathy  of  feeling,  if  not  of  genius, 


140  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

had  united  me  to  their  order — my  friend  mentioned  several 
of  their  names.  The  world  has  likewise  heard  those 
names;  with  some  it  has  been  familiar  for  years,  and 
others  are  daily  making  their  way  deeper  into  the  universal 
heart. 

"  Thank  heaven/'  observed  I  to  my  companion  as  we 
passed  to  another  part  of  the  hall,  "  we  have  done  with  this 
tetchy,  wayward,  shy,  proud,  unreasonable  set  of  laurel- 
gatherers!  I  love  them  in  their  works,  but  have  little 
desire  to  meet  then  elsewhere." 

"  You  have  adopted  an  old  prejudice,  I  see,"  replied  my 
friend,  who  was  familiar  with  most  of  these  worthies,  being 
himself  a  student  of  poetry  and  not  without  the  poetic 
flame.  "But  so  far  as  my  experience  goes,  men  of 
genius  are  fairly  gifted  with  the  social  qualities,  and  in 
this  age  there  appears  to  be  a  fellow-feeling  among  them 
which  had  not  heretofore  been  developed.  As  men  they 
ask  nothing  better  than  to  be  on  equal  terms  with  their 
fellow-men,  and  as  authors  they  have  thrown  aside  their 
proverbial  jealousy  and  acknowledge  a  generous  brother 
hood.  " 

"  The  world  does  not  think  so,"  answered  I.  " An  au 
thor  is  received  in  general  society  pretty  much  as  we  honest 
citizens  are  in  the  Hall  of  Fantasy.  We  gaze  at  him  as  if 
he  had  no  business  among  us,  and  question  whether  he  is  fit 
for  any  of  our  pursuits." 

"  Then  it  is  a  very  foolish  question,"  said  he.  "  Now, 
here  are  a  class  of  men  whom  we  daily  meet  on  'change, 
yet  what  poet  in  the  hall  is  more  a  fool  of  Fancy  than  the 
sagest  of  them?" 

He  pointed  to  a  number  of  persons  who,  manifest  as  the 
fact  was,  would  have  deemed  it  an  insult  to  be  told  that 
they  stood  in  the  Hall  of  Fantasy.  Their  visages  were 
traced  into  wrinkles  and  furrows  each  of  which  seemed  the 
record  of  some  actual  experience  in  life.  Their  eyes  had 
the  shrewd,  calculating  glance  which  detects  so  quickly  and 
so  surely  all  that  it  concerns  a  man  of  business  to  know 
about  the  characters  and  purposes  of  his  fellow-men.  Judg 
ing  them  as  they  stood,  they  might  be  honored  and  trusted 
members  of  the  chamber  of  commerce  who  had  found  the 
genuine  secret  of  wealth,  and  whose  sagacity  gave  them  the 
command  of  fortune.  There  was  a  character  of  detail  and 
matter  of  fact  in  their  talk  which  concealed  the  extrava- 


THE  HALL  OF  FANTASY.  141 

gance  of  its  purport,,  insomuch  that  the  wildest  schemes 
had  the  aspect  of  every-day  realities.  Thus  the  listener 
was  not  startled  at  the  idea  of  cities  to  be  built  as  if  by 
magic  in  the  heart  of  pathless  forests,  and  of  streets  to  be 
laid  out  where  now  the  sea  was  tossing,  and  of  mighty  rivers 
to  be  stayed  in  their  courses  in  order  to  turn  the  machinery 
of  a  cotton-mill.  It  was  only  by  an  effort — and  scarcely 
then — that  the  mind  convinced  itself  that  such  specula 
tions  were  as  much  matter  of  fantasy  as  the  old  dream  of 
Eldorado,  or  as  Mammon's  Cave  or  any  other  vision  of  gold 
ever  conjured  up  by  the  imagination  of  needy  poet  or  ro 
mantic  adventurer. 

"  Upon  my  word,"  said  I,  "  it  is  dangerous  to  listen  to 
such  dreamers  as  these.  Their  madness  is  contagious." 

"  Yes,"  said  my  friend,  "because  they  mistake  the  Hall 
of  Fantasy  for  actual  brick  and  mortar  and  its  purple  at 
mosphere  for  unsophisticated  sunshine.  But  the  poet 
knows  his  whereabout,  andt  herefore  is  less  likely  to  make 
a  fool  of  himself  in  real  life." 

"Here  again,"  observed  I,  as  we  advanced  a  little  far 
ther,  "  we  see  another  order  of  dreamers — peculiarly 
characteristic,  too,  of  the  genius  of  our  country." 

These  were  the  inventors  of  fantastic  machines.  Models 
of  their  contrivances  were  placed  against  some  of  the  pillars 
of  the  hall,  and  afforded  good  emblems  of  the  result  gen 
erally  to  be  anticipated  from  an  attempt  to  reduce  (lay- 
dreams  to  practice.  The  analogy  may  hold  in  morals  as 
well  as  physics.  For  instance,  here  was  the  model  of  a 
railroad  through  the  air  and  a  tunnel  under  the  sea.  Here 
was  a  machine — stolen,  I  believe — for  the  distillation  of 
heat  from  moonshine,  and  another  for  the  condensation  of 
morning  mist  into  square  blocks  of  granite  wherewith  it 
was  proposed  to  rebuild  the  entire  Hall  of  Fantasy.  One 
man  exhibited  a  sort  of  lens  whereby  he  had  succeeded  in 
making  sunshine  out  of  a  lady's  smile,  and  it  was  his  pur 
pose  wholly  to  irradiate  the  earth  by  means  of  this  wonder 
ful  invention. 

"It  is  nothing  new,"  said  I,  "for  most  of  our  sunshine 
comes  from  woman's  smile  already." 

"True,"  answered  the  inventor  ;  "but  my  machine  will 
secure  a  constant  supply  of  domestic  use,  whereas  hitherto 
it  has  been  very  precarious." 

Another  person  had  a  scheme  for  fixing  the  reflections  of 


142  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

objects  in  a  pool  of  water,  and  thus  taking  the  most  lifelike 
portraits  imaginable,  and  the  same  gentleman  demonstrated 
the  practicability  of  giving  a  permanent  dye  to  ladies' 
dresses  in  the  gorgeous  clouds  of  sunset.  There  were  at 
least  fifty  kinds  of  perpetual  motion,  one  of  which  was  ap 
plicable  to  the  wits  of  newspaper  editors  and  writers  of 
every  description.  Prof.  Espy  was  here  with  a  tremendous 
storm  in  a  gum-elastic  bag.  I  could  enumerate  many 
more  of  these  Utopian  inventions,  but,  after  all,  a  more 
imaginative  collection  is  to  be  found  in  the  Patent  Office 
at  Washington. 

Turning  from  the  inventors,  we  took  a  more  general  sur 
vey  of  the  inmates  of  the  hall.  Many  persons  were  present 
whose  right  of  entrance  appeared  to  consist  in  some  crotchet 
of  the  brain  which,  so  long  MS  it  might  operate,  produced  a 
change  in  their  relation  to  the  actual  world.  It  is  singular 
how  very  few  there  are  who  do  not  occasionally  gain  ad 
mittance  on  such  a  score,  either  in  abstracted  musings  or 
momentary  thoughts  or  bright  anticipations  or  vivid  remem 
brances  ;  for  even  the  actual  becomes  ideal,  whether  in 
hope  or  memory,  and  beguiles  the  dreamer  into  the  Hall  of 
Fantasy.  Some  unfortunates  make  their  whole  abode  and 
business  here,  and  contract  habits  which  unfit  them  for  all 
the  real  employments  of  life.  Others — but  these  are  few — 
possess  the  faculty  in  their  occasional  visits  of  discovering 
a  purer  truth  than  the  world  can  impart  among  the  lights 
and  shadows  of  these  pictured  windows. 

And,  with  all  its  dangerous  influences,  we  have  reason  to 
thank  God  that  there  is  such  a  place  of  refuge  from  the 
gloom  and  chilliness  of  actual  life.  Hither  may  come  the 
prisoner  escaping  from  his  dark  and  narrow  cell  and  can 
kerous  chain  to  breathe  free  air  in  this  enchanted  atmos 
phere.  The  sick  man  leaves  his  weary  pillow  and  finds 
strength  to  wander  hither,  though  his  wasted  limbs  might 
not  support  him  even  to  the  threshold  of  his  chamber.  The 
exile  passes  through  the  Hall  of  Fantasy  to  revisit  his 
native  soil.  The  burden  of  years  rolls  down  from  the  old 
man's  shoulders  the  moment  that  the  door  uncloses. 
Mourners  leave  their  heavy  sorrows  at  the  entrance,  and 
here  rejoin  the  lost  ones  whose  faces  would  else  be  seen  no 
more  until  thought  shall  have  become  the  only  fact.  It  may 
be  said,  in  truth,  that  there  is  but  half  a  life — the  meaner 
and  earthlier  half — for  those  who  never  find  their  way  into 


THE  HALL  OF  FANTASY.  143 

the  hall.  Nor  must  I  fail  to  mention  that  in  the  observa 
tory  of  the  edifice  is  kept  that  wonderful  perspective  glass 
through  which  the  shepherds  of  the  Delectable  Mountains 
showed  Christian  the  far-off  gleam  of  the  Celestial  City. 
The  eye  of  Faith  still  loves  to  gaze  through  it. 

"  I  observe  some  men  here,"  said  I,  to  my  friend,  "who 
might  set  up  a  strong  claim  to  be  reckoned  among  the  most 
real  personages  of  the  day." 

"  Certainly,"  he  replied.  "If  a  man  be  in  advance  of 
his  age  he  must  be  content  to  make  his  abode  in  this  hall 
until  the  lingering  generations  of  his  fellow-men  come  up 
with  him.  lie  can  find  no  other  shelter  in  the  universe. 
But  the  fantasies  of  one  day  are  the  deepest  realities  of  a 
future  one." 

"  It  is  difficult  to  distinguish  them  apart  amid  the  gor 
geous  and  bewildering  light  of  this  hall/'  rejoined  I;  "  the 
white  sunshine  of  actual  life  is  necessary  in  order  to  test 
them.  I  am  rather  apt  to  doubt  both  men  and  their  rea 
sonings  till  I  meet  them  in  that  truthful  medium." 

"  Perhaps  your  faith  in  the  ideal  is  deeper  than  you  are 
aware,"  said  my  friend.  '*  You  are,  at  least,  a  democrat 
and  methinks  no  scanty  share  of  such  faith  is  essential  to 
the  adoption  of  that  creed." 

Among  the  characters  who  had  elicited  these  remarks 
were  most  of  the  noted  reformers  of  the  day,  whether  in 
physics,  politics,  morals  or  religion.  There  is  no  surer 
method  of  arriving  at  the  Hall  of  Fantasy  than  to  throw 
oneVself  into  the  current  of  a  theory,  for,  whatever  land 
marks  of  fact  may  be  set  up  along  the  stream  there  is  a  law 
of  nature  that  impels  it  thither.  And  let  it  be  so,  for  here 
the  wise  head  and  capacious  heart  may  do  their  work  and 
what  is  good  and  true  becomes  gradually  hardened  into 
fact,  while  error  melts  away  and  vanishes  among  the 
shadows  of  the  hall.  Therefore  may  none  who  believe  and 
rejoice  in  the  progress  of  mankind  be  angry  with  me  be 
cause  I  recognized  their  apostles  and  leaders  amid  the  fan 
tastic  radiance  of  those  pictured  windows.  I  love  and 
honor  such  men  as  well  as  they. 

It  would  be  endless  to  describe  the  herd  of  real  or  self- 
styled  reformers  that  peopled  this  place  of  refuge.  They 
were  the  representatives  of  an  unquiet  period  when  man 
kind  is  seeking  to  cast  oil  the  whole  tissue  of  ancient  cus 
tom  like  a  tattered  garment.  Many  of  them  had  got  pos- 


144  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

session  of  some  crystal  fragment  of  truth,  the  brightness  of 
which  so  dazzled  them  that  they  could  see  nothing  else  in 
the  wide  universe.  Here  were  men  whose  faith  had  em 
bodied  itself  in  the  form  of  a  potato  and  others  whose  long 
beards  had  a  deep  spiritual  significance.  Here  was  the 
Abolitionist  brandishing  his  one  idea  like  an  iron  flail.  In 
a  word,  there  were  a  thousand  shapes  of  good  and  evil, 
faith  and  infidelity,  wisdom  and  nonsense,  a  most  incon 
gruous  throng. 

"  Yet,  withal,  the  heart  of  the  stanchest  conservative, 
unless  he  abjured  his  fellowship  with  man,  could  hardly 
have  helped  throbbing  in  sympathy  with  the  spirit  that 
pervaded  these  innumerable  theorists.  It  was  good  for  the 
man  of  unquickened  heart  to  listen  even  to  their  folly. 
Far  down  beyond  the  fathom  of  the  intellect  the  soul  ac 
knowledged  that  all  these  varying  and  conflicting  develop 
ments  of  humanity  were  united  in  one  sentiment.  Be  the 
individual  theory  as  wild  as  fancy  could  make  it,  still  the 
wiser  spirit  would  recognize  the  struggle  of  the  race  after  a 
better  and  purer  life  than  had  yet  been  realized  on  earth. 
My  faith  revived  even  while  I  rejected  all  their  schemes. 
It  could  not  be  that  the  world  should  continue  forever 
what  it  has  been,  a  soil  where  happiness  is  so  rare  a  flower 
and  virtue  so  often  a  blighted  fruit,  a  battle-field  where  the 
good  principle,  with  its  shield  flung  above  its  head,  can 
hardly  save  itself  amid  the  rush  of  adverse  influences.  In 
the  enthusiasm  of  such  thoughts  I  gazed  through  one  of  the 
pictured  windows,  and,  behold!  the  whole  external  world 
was  tinged  with  the  dimly  glorious  aspect  that  is  peculiar 
to  the  Hall  of  Fantasy,  insomuch  that  it  seemed  practicable 
at  that  very  instant  to  realize  some  plan  for  the  perfection 
of  mankind.  But,  alas!  if  reformers  would  understand  the 
sphere  in  which  their  lot  is  cast,  they  must  cease  to  look 
through  pictured  windows,  yet  they  not  only  use  this 
medium,  but  mistake  it  for  the  whitest  sunshine. 

"  Come  !  "  said  I  to  my  friend,  starting  from  a  deep  rev 
erie;  "  let  us  hasten  hence,  or  I  shall  be  tempted  to  make 
a  theory — after  which,  there  is  little  hope  of  any  man/' 

"Come  hither,  then,"  answered  he.  "Here  is  one 
theory  that  swallows  up  and  annihilates  all  others." 

He  led  rne  to  a  distant  part  of  the  hall  where  a  crowd  of 
deeply  attentive  auditors  were  assembled  round  an  elderly 
man  of  plain,  honest,  trustworthy  aspect.  AVith  an  ear- 


THE  HALL  OF  FANTASY.  H5 

nestness  that  betokened  the  siucerest  faith  in  his  own  doc 
trine  he  announced  that  the  destruction  of  the  world  was 
close  at  hand. 

"  It  is  Father  Miller  himself  \"  exclaimed  I. 

"  No  less  a  man,"  said  my  friend.  "And  observe  how 
picturesque  a  contrast  between  his  dogma  and  those  of  the 
reformers  whom  we  have  just  glanced  at.  They  look  for 
the  earthly  perfection  of  mankind  and  are  forming  schemes 
which  imply  that  the  immortal  spirit  will  be  connected 
with  a  physical  nature  for  innumerable  ages  of  futurity. 
On  the  other  hand,  hero  comes  good  Father  Miller  and  with 
one  puff  of  his  relentless  theory  scatters  all  their  dreams 
like  so  many  withered  leaves  upon  the  blast." 

•'  It  is  perhaps  the  only  method  of  getting  mankind  out 
of  the  various  perplexities  into  which  they  have  fallen,"  I 
replied.  '•  Vet  I  could  wish  that  the  world  might  be  per 
mitted  to  endure  until  some  great  moral  shall  have  been 
evolved.  A  riddle  is  propounded;  where  is  the  solution? 
The  Sphinx  did  not  slay  herself  until  her  riddle  had  been 
guessed;  will  it  not  be  so  with  the  world?  Now,  if  it 
should  be  burned  to-morrow  morning,  I  am  at  a  loss  to 
know  what  purpose  will  have  been  accomplished,  or  how 
the  universe  will  be  wiser  or  better  for  our  existence  and 
destruction." 

"  We  cannot  tell  what  mighty  truths  may  have  been  em 
bodied  in  act  through  the  existence  of  the  globe  and  its  in 
habitants,"  rejoined  my  companion.  "  Perhaps  it  may  be 
revealed  to  us  after  the  fall  of  the  curtain  over  our  catas 
trophe;  or,  not  impossibly,  the  whole  drama  in  which  we 
are  involuntary  actors  may  have  been  performed  for  the  in 
struction  of  another  set  of  spectators.  I  cannot  perceive 
that  our  own  comprehension  of  it  is  at  all  essential  to  the 
matter.  At  any  rate,  while  our  view  is  so  ridiculously  nar 
row  and  superficial  it  would  be  absurd  to  argue  the  con 
tinuance  of  the  world  from  the  fact  that  it  seems  to  have 
existed  hitherto  in  vain." 

*'  The  poor  old  Earth  I"  murmured  I.  "  She  has  faults 
enough,  in  all  conscience,  but  I  cannot  bear  to  have  her 
perish." 

"  It  is  no  great  matter,"  said  my  friend.  "  The  happiest 
of  us  has  been  weary  of  her  many  a  time  and  oft." 

"  I  doubt  it,"  answered  I,  pertinaciously.  "  The  root  of 
human  nature  strikes  down  deep  into  this  earthly  soil  and 


146  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

it  is  but  reluctantly  that  we  submit  to  be  transplanted  even 
for  a  higher  cultivation  in  heaven.  I  query  whether  the  de 
struction  of  the  earth  would  gratify  any  one  individual — 
except,  perhaps,  some  embarrassed  man  of  business  whose 
notes  fall  due  a  day  after  the  day  of  doom." 

Then,  methought,  I  heard  the  expostulating  cry  of  a 
multitude  against  the  consummation  prophesied  by  Father 
Miller.  The  lover  wrestled  with  Providence  for  his  fore 
shadowed  bliss;  parents  entreated  that  the  earth's  span  of 
endurance  might  be  prolonged  by  some  seventy  years,  so 
that  their  new-born  infant  should  not  be  defrauded  of  his 
lifetime;  a  youthful  poet  murmured  because  there  would  be 
no  posterity  to  •  recognize  the  inspiration  of  his  song;  the 
reformers,  one  and  all,  demanded  a  few  thousand  years  to 
test  their  theories,  after  which  the  universe  might  go  to 
wreck;  a  mechanician  who  was  busied  with  an  improve 
ment  of  the  steam-engine  asked  merely  time  to  perfect  his 
model:  a  miser  insisted  that  the  world's  destruction  would 
be  a  personal  wrong  to  himself  unless  he  should  first  be  per 
mitted  to  add  a  specified  sum  to  his  enormous  heap  of  gold; 
a  little  boy  made  dolorous  inquiry  whether  the  last  day 
would  come  before  Christmas,  and  thus  deprive  him  of  his 
anticipated  dainties.  In  short,  nobody  seemed  satisfied  that 
this  mortal  scene  of  things  should  have  its  closj  just  now. 
Yet  it  must  be  confessed  the  motives  of  the  crowd  for  de 
siring  its  continuance  were  mostly  so  absurd  that  unless  in 
finite  AVisdom  had  been  aware  of  much  better  reasons  the 
solid  earth  must  have  melted  away  at  once. 

For  my  own  part,  not  to  speak  of  a  few  private  and  per 
sonal  ends,  I  really  desired  our  old  mother's  prolonged  ex 
istence  for  her  own  dear  sake. 

"The  poor  old  Earth!"  I  repeated.  "What  I  should 
chiefly  regret  in  her  destruction  would  be  that  very  eartli- 
liness  which  no  other  sphere  or  state  of  existence  can  renew 
or  compensate.  The  fragrance  of  flowers  and  of  new-mown 
hay,  the  genial  warmth  of  sunshine  and  the  beauty  of  a 
sunset  among  clouds,  the  comfort  and  cheerful  glow  of  the 
fireside,  the  deliciousness  of  fruits,  and  of  all  good  cheer, 
the  magnificence  of  mountains  and  seas  and  cataracts,  and 
the  softer  charm  of  rural  scenery — even  the  last-falling 
snow  and  the  gray  atmosphere  through  which  it  descends — 
all  these,  and  innumerable  other  en joyable  things  of  Earth, 
must  perish  with  her.  Then  the  country  frolics!  the 


THE  HALL  OF  FANTASY.  147 

homely  humor,  the  broad,  open-mouthed  roar  of  laughter 
in  which  body  and  soul  conjoin  so  heartily!  I  fear  that  no 
other  world  can  show  us  anything  just  like  this.  As  for 
purely  moral  enjoyments,  the  good  will  find  them  in  every 
state  of  being.  But,  where  the  material  and  the  moral  ex 
ist  together,  what  is  to  happen  then?  And  then  our  mute 
four-footed  friends  and  the  winged  songsters  of  our  woods! 
Might  it  not  be  lawful  to  regret  them  even  in  the  hallowed 
groves  of  Paradise? 

"  You  speak  like  the  very  spirit  of  Earth  imbued  with  a 
scent  of  freshly  turned  soil/'  exclaimed  my  friend. 

"It  is  not  that  I  so  much  object  to  giving  up  these  en 
joyments  on  my  own  account/'  continued  I,  "  but  I  bate 
to  think  that  they  will  have  been  eternally  annihilated  from 
the  list  of  joys." 

"  Nor  need  they  be,"  he  replied.  "  I  see  no  real  force  in 
what  you  say.  Standing  in  this  Hall  of  Fantasy,  wre  per 
ceive  what  even  the  earth-clogged  intellect  of  man  can  do 
in  creating  circumstances  which,  though  we  call  them  shad 
owy  and  visionary,  are  scarcely  more  so  than  those  that 
surround  us  in  actual  life.  Doubt  not,  then,  that  man's 
disembodied  spirit  may  re-create  time  and  the  world  for 
itself,  with  all  their  peculiar  enjoyments,  should  there  still 
be  limrmn  yearnings  amid  life  eternal  and  infinite.  But  I 
doubt  whether  we  shall  be  inclined  to  play  such  a  poor 
scene  over  again." 

"  Oh,  you  are  ungrateful  to  our  mother  Earth!"  rejoined 
I.  •''  Come  what  may,  I  never  will  forget  her.  Neither 
will  it  satisfy  me  to  have  her  exist  merely  in  idea.  I  want 
her  great  round  solid  self  to  endure  interminably  and  still 
to  be  peopled  with  the  kindly  race  of  man,  whom  I  uphold 
to  be  much  better  than  he  thinks  himself.  Nevertheless,  I 
confide  the  whole  matter  to  Providence,  and  shall  endeavor 
so  to  live  that  the  world  may  come  to  an  end  at  any  mo 
ment  without  leaving  me  at  a  loss  to  find  foothold  "some 
where  else." 

"  It  is  an  excellent  resolve,"  said  my  companion,  looking 
at  his  watch.  "But  come!  it  is  the  dinner-hour.  Will 
you  partake  of  my  vegetable  diet?" 

A  thing  so  matter  of  fact  as  an  invitation  to  dinner,  even 
when  the  fare  was  to  be  nothing  more  substantial  than  veg 
etables  and  fruit,  compelled  us  forthwith  to  remove  from 
the  Hall  of  Fantasy.  As  we  passed  out  of  the  portal  we 


148  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

met  the  spirits  of  several  persons  who  had  been  sent 
thither  in  magnetic  sleep.  I  looked  back  among  the 
sculptured  pillars  and  at  the  transformations  of  the 
gleaming  fountain,  and  almost  desired  that  the  whole  of 
life  might  be  spent  in  that  visionary  scene,  where  the 
actual  world,  with  its  hard  angles,  should  never  rub 
against  me  and  only  be  viewed  through  the  medium  of 
pictured  windows.  But  for  those  who  waste  all  their  days 
in  the  Hall  of  Fantasy  good  Father  Miller's  prophecy  is 
already  accomplished  and  the  solid  earth  has  come  to  an 
untimely  end.  Let  us  be  content,  therefore,  with  merely 
an  occasional  visit  for  the  sake  of  spiritualizing  the  gross- 
ness  of  this  actual  life  and  prefiguring  to  ourselves  a  state 
in  which  the  idea  shall  be  all  in  all. 


THE  CELESTIAL  RAILROAD.  149 


THE  CELESTIAL  RAILROAD. 


NOT  a  great  while  ago,  passing  through  the  gate  of 
dreams,  I  visited  that  region  of  the  earth  in  which  lies  the 
famous  City  of  Destruction.  It  interested  me  much  to 
learn  that  by  the  public  spirit  of  some  of  the  inhabitants 
a  railroad  has  recently  been  established  between  this  popu 
lous  and  nourishing  town  and  the  Celestial  City.  Having 
a  little  time  upon  my  hands,  I  resolved  to  gratify  a  liberal 
curiosity  to  make  a  trip  thither.  Accordingly,  one  fine 
morning,  after  paying  my  bill  at  the  hotel,  and  directing 
the  porter  to  stow  my  luggage  behind  a  coach,  I  took  my 
seat  in  the  vehicle  and  set  out  for  the  station-house.  It 
was  my  good  fortune  to  enjoy  the  company  of  a  gentleman 
— one  Mr.  Smooth-it-Away — who,  though  he  had  never 
actually  visited  the  Celestial  City,  yet  seemed  as  well 
acquainted  with  its  laws,  customs,  policy  and  statistics  as 
with  those  of  the  City  of  Destruction,  of  which  he  was  a 
native  townsman.  Being,  moreover,  a  director  of  the  rail 
road  corporation  and  one  of  its  largest  stockholders,  he 
had  it  in  his  power  to  give  me  all  the  desirable  informa- 
ation  respecting  that  praiseworthy  enterprise. 

Our  coach  rattled  out  of  the  city,  and,  at  a  short  dis 
tance  from  its  outskirts,  passed  over  a  bridge  of  elegant 
construction,  but  somewhat  too  slight,  as  I  imagined,  to 
sustain  any  considerable  weight.  On  both  sides  lay  an 
extensive  quagmire  which  could  not  have  been  more  disa 
greeable  either  to  sight  or  smell  had  all  the  kennels  of  the 
earth  emptied  their  pollution  there. 

"This,"  remarked  Mr.  Smooth-it-Away,  "is  the  famous 
Slough  of  Despond — a  disgrace  to  all  the  neighborhood, 
and  the  greater  that  it  might  so  easily  be  converted  into 
firm  ground." 


150  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"I  have  understood,"  said  I,  "that  efforts  have  been 
made  for  that  purpose  from  time  immemorial.  Bun- 
yan  mentions  that  above  twenty-thousand  cart-loads  of 
wholesome  instructions  had  been  thrown  in  here  without 
effect." 

"  Very  probably!  And  what  effect  could  be  anticipated 
from  such  unsubstantial  stuff?"  cried  Mr.  Smooth-it- Away. 
"You  observe  this  convenient  bridge?  We  obtained  a 
sufficient  foundation  for  it  by  throwing  into  the  slough 
some  editions  of  books  of  morality,  volumes  of  French 
philosophy  and  German  rationalism,  tracts,  sermons  and 
essays  of  modern  clergymen,  extracts  from  Plato,  Confu 
cius  and  various  Hindoo  sages,  together  with  a  few  ingen 
ious  commentaries  upon  texts  of  Scripture — all  of  which, 
by  some  scientific  process,  have  been  converted  into  a  mass 
like  granite.  The  whole  bog  might  be  filled  up  with  sim 
ilar  matter." 

It  really  seemed  to  me,  however,  that  the  bridge  vibrated 
and  heaved  up  and  down  in  a  very  formidable  manner; 
and,  spite  of  Mr.  Smooth-it-  A  way 's  testimony  to  the  solid 
ity  of  its  foundation,  I  should  be  loth  to  cross  it  in  a 
crowded  omnibus,  especially  if  each  passenger  were 
encumbered  with  as  heavy  luggage  as  that  gentleman  and 
myself.  Nevertheless,  we  got  over  without  accident,  and 
soon  found  ourselves  at  the  station-house.  This  very  neat 
and  spacious  edifice  is  erected  on  the  site  of  the  little  wicket- 
gate  which  formerly,  as  all  old  pilgrims  will  recollect,  stood 
directly  across  the  highway,  and  by  its  inconvenient  nar 
rowness  was  a  great  obstruction  to  the  traveler  of  liberal 
mind  and  expansive  stomach.  The  reader  of  John  Bunyan 
will  be  glad  to  know  that  Christian's  old  friend  Evangelist, 
who  was  accustomed  to  supply  each  pilgrim  with  a  mystic 
roll,  now  presides  at  the  ticket-office.  Some  malicious 
persons,  it  is  true,  deny  the  identity  of  this  reputable  char 
acter  with  the  Evangelist  of  old  times,  and  even  pretend  to 
bring  competent  evidences  of  an  imposture.  Without  in 
volving  myself  into  a  dispute,  I  shall  merely  observe  that, 
so  far  as  my  experience  goes,  the  square  pieces  of  pasteboard 
now  delivered  to  passengers  are  much  more  convenient  and 
useful  along  the  road  than  the  antique  roll  of  parchment. 
Whether  they  will  be  as  readily  received  at  the  gate  of  the 
Celestial  City,  I  decline  giving  an  opinion. 

A  large  number  of  passengers  were  already  at  the  station- 


THE  CELESTIAL  RAILROAD.  151 

house  awaiting  the  departure  of  the  cars.  By  the  aspect 
and  demeanor  of  these  persons,  it  was  easy  to  judge  that 
the  feelings  of  the  community  had  undergone  a  very  favor 
able  change  in  reference  to  the  celestial  pilgrimage.  It 
would  have  done  Bunyan's  heart  good  to  see  it.  Instead 
of  a  lonely  and  ragged  man  with  a  huge  burden  on  his  back, 
plodding  along  sorrowfully  on  foot,  while  the  whole  city 
hooted  after  him,  here  were  parties  of  the  first  gentry  and 
most  respectable  people  in  the  neighborhood  setting  forth 
toward  the  Celestial  City  as  cheerfully  as  if  the  pilgrimage 
was  merely  a  summer  tour.  Among  the  gentlemen  were 
characters  of  deserved  eminence — magistrates,  politicians 
and  men  of  wealth  by  whose  example  religion  could  not  but 
be  greatly  recommended  to  their  meaner  brethren.  In  the 
ladies'  apartment,  too,  I  rejoiced  to  distinguish  some  of 
those  flowers  of  fashionable  society  who  are  so  well  fitted  to 
adorn  the  most  elevated  circles  of  the  Celestial  City.  There 
was  much  pleasant  conversation  about  the  news  of  the  day, 
topics  of  business,  politics  or  the  lighter  matters  of  amuse 
ment,  while  religion,  though  indubitably  the  main  thing 
at  heart,  was  thrown  tastefully  into  the  background.  Even 
an  infidel  would  have  heard  little  or  nothing  to  shock  his 
sensibility. 

One  great  convenience  of  the  new  method  of  going  on 
pilgrimage  I  must  not  forget  to  mention.  Our  enor 
mous  burdens,  instead  of  being  carried  on  our  shoulders, 
as  had  been  the  custom  of  old,  were  all  snugly  deposited  in 
the  baggage-car,  and,  as  I  was  assured,  would  be  delivered 
to  their  respective  owners  at  the  journey's  end.  Another 
thing,  likewise,  the  benevolent  reader  will  be  delighted  to 
understand.  It  may  be  remembered  that  there  was  an 
ancient  feud  between  Prince  Beelzebub  and  the  keeper  of 
the  wicket-gate,  and  that  the  adherents  of  the  former  dis 
tinguished  personage  were  accustomed  to  shoot  deadly 
arrows  at  honest  pilgrims  while  knocking  at  the  door. 
This  dispute,  much  to  the  credit  as  well  of  the  illustrious 
potentate  above  mentioned  as  of  the  worthy  and  enlightened 
directors  of  the  railroad,  has  been  pacifically  arranged  on 
the  principle  of  mutual  compromise.  The  prince's  subjects 
are  now  pretty  numerously  employed  about  the  station- 
house — some  in  taking  care  of  the  baggage,  others  in  col 
lecting  fuel,  feeding  the  engines,  and  such  congenial  occu 
pations — and  I  can  conscientiously  affirm  that  persons 


152  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

more  attentive  to  their  business,  more  willing  to  accommo 
date  or  more  generally  agreeable  to  the  passengers  are  not 
to  be  found  on  any  railroad.  Every  good  heart  must 
surely  exult  at  so  satisfactory  an  arrangement  of  an.  imme 
morial  difficulty. 

"  Where  is  Mr.  Greatheart  ?"  inquired  I.  "  Beyond  a 
doubt,  the  directors  have  engaged  that  famous  old  cham 
pion  to  be  chief  conductor  on  the  railroad  ?" 

"  Why  no,"  said  Mr.  Smooth-it- Away,  with  a  dry  cough. 
"  He  was  offered  the  situation  of  brakeman,  but,  to  tell 
you  the  truth,  our  friend  Greatheart  has  grown  preposter 
ously  stiff  and  narrow  in  his  old  age.  He  has  so  often 
guided  pilgrims  over  the  road  on  foot  that  he  considers  it  a 
sin  to  travel  in  any  other  fashion.  Besides,  the  old  fellow 
had  entered  so  heartily  into  the  ancient  feud  with  Prince 
Beelzebub  that  he  would  have  been  perpetually  at  blows  or 
ill-language  with  some  of  the  prince's  subjects,  and  thus 
have  embroiled  us  anew.  So,  on  the  whole,  we  were  not 
sorry  when  honest  Greatheart  went  off  to  the  Celestial 
City  in  a  huff  and  left  us  at  liberty  to  choose  a  more  suit 
able  and  accommodating  man.  Yonder  co.mes  the  con 
ductor  of  the  train.  You  will  probably  recognize  him  at 
once/' 

The  engine  at  this  moment  took  its  station  in  advance  of 
the  cars,  looking,  I  must  confess,  much  more  like  a  sort  of 
mechanical  demon  that  would  hurry  us  to  the  infernal  re 
gions  than  a  laudable  contrivance  for  smoothing  our  way 
to  the  Celestial  City.  On  its  top  sat  a  personage  almost 
enveloped  in  smoke  and  flame  which — not  to  startle  the 
reader — appeared  to  gush  from  his  own  mouth  and  stomach, 
as  well  as  from  the  engine's  brazen  abdomen. 

"  Do  my  eyes  deceive  me  ?"'  cried  1.  "What  on  earth  is 
this  ?  A  living  creature  ?  If  so,  he  is  own  brother  to  the 
engine  he  rides  upon  ?" 

"  Poh,  poll  !  you  are  abtuse  I"  said  Mr.  Smooth-it- A  way, 
with  a  hearty  laugh.  "  Don't  you  know  Apollyon,  Chris 
tian's  old  enemy,  with  whom  he  fought  so  fierce  a  battle  in 
the  V^alley  of  Humiliation  ?  He  was  the  very  fellow  to 
manage  the  engine,  and  so  we  have  reconciled  him  to  the 
custom  of  going  on  pilgrimage,  and  engaged  him  as  chief 
conductor." 

"  Bravo,  bravo  !"  exclaimed  I,  with  irrepressible  enthu 
siasm,  "  This  shows  the  liberality  of  the  age  ;  this  proves, 


THE  CELESTIAL  RAILROAD.  153 

if  anything  can,  that  all  musty  prejudices  are  in  a  fair  way 
to  be  obliterated.  And  how  will  Christian  rejoice  to  hear 
of  this  happy  transformation  of  his  old  antagonist  !  I 
promise  myself  great  pleasure  in  informing  him  of  it  when 
we  reach  the  Celestial  City." 

The  passengers  being  all  comfortably  seated,  we  now  rat 
tled  away  merrily,  accomplishing  a  greater  distance  in  ten 
minutes  than  Christian  probably  trudged  over  in  a  day. 
It  was  laughable  while  we  glanced  along,  as  it  were,  at  the 
tail  of  a  thunderbolt,  to  observe  two  dusty  foot-travelers  in 
the  old  pilgrim  guise,  with  cockle-shell  and  staff,  their 
mystic  rolls  of  parchment  in  their  hands  and  their  intoler 
able  burdens  on  their  backs.  The  preposterous  obstinacy 
of  these  honest  people  in  persisting  to  groan  and  stumble 
along  the  difficult  pathway  rather  than  take  advantage  of 
modern  improvements  excited  great  mirth  among  our 
wiser  brotherhood.  We  greeted  the  two  pilgrims  with 
many  pleasant  gibes  and  a  roar  of  laughter;  whereupon 
they  gazed  at  us  with  such  woeful  and  absurdly  compas 
sionate  visages  that  our  merriment  grew  tenfold  more  ob 
streperous.  Apollyon,  also,  entered  heartily  into  the  fun, 
and  contrived  to  flirt  the  smoke  and  flame  of  the  engine 
or  of  his  own  breath  into  their  faces,  and  envelop  them  in 
an  atmosphere  of  scalding  steam.  These  little  practical 
jokes  amused  us  mightily,  and  doubtless  afforded  the  pil 
grims  the  gratification  of  considering  themselves  martyrs. 

At  some  distance  from  the  railroad  Mr.  Smooth-it-Away 
pointed  to  a  large,  antique  edifice  which,  he  observed,  was 
a  tavern  of  long  standing,  and  had  formerly  been  a  noted 
stopping-place  for  pilgrims.  In  Bunyan's  road-book  it  is 
mentioned  as  the  Interpreter's  House. 

"  I  have  long  had  a  curiosity  to  visit  that  old  mansion," 
remarked  I. 

"  It  is  not  one  of  our  stations,  as  you  perceive,"  said  my 
companion.  "  The  keeper  was  violently  opposed  to  the 
railroad,  and  well  he  might  be,  as  the  track  left  his  house 
of  entertainment  on  one  side,  and  thus  was  pretty  certain 
to  deprive  him  of  all  his  reputable  customers.  But  the 
footpath  still  passes  his  door,  and  the  old  gentleman  now 
and  then  receives  a  call  from  some  simple  traveler  and  en 
tertains  him  with  fare  as  old-fashioned  as  himself." 

Before  our  talk  on  this  subject  came  to  a  conclusion  we 
were  rushing  by  the  place  where  Christian's  burden  fell 


154  MOSSfiS  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

from  his  shoulders  at  the  sight  of  the  cross.  This  served 
as  a  theme  for  Mr.  Smooth-it-Away,  Mr.  Live-for-the 
World,  Mr.  Hide-Sin-in-the-Heart,  Mr.  Scaly-Conscience 
and  a  knot  of  gentlemen  from  the  town  of  Shim-Repent 
ance  to  descant  upon  the  inestimable  advantages  resulting 
from  the  safety  of  our  baggage.  Myself — and  all  the  pas 
sengers,  indeed — joined  with  great  unanimity  in  this  view 
of  the  matter,  for  our  burdens  were  rich  in  many  things 
esteemed  precious  throughout  the  world,  and  especially  we 
each  of  us  possessed  a  great  variety  of  favorite  habits  which 
we  trusted  would  not  be  out  of  fashion  even  in  the  polite 
circles  of  the  Celestial  City.  It  would  have  been  a  sad 
spectacle  to  see  such  an  assortment  of  valuable  articles 
tumbling  into  the  sepulcher. 

Thus  pleasantly  conversing  on  the  favorable  circum 
stances  of  our  position  as  compared  with  those  of  past  pil 
grims  and  of  narrow-minded  ones  at  the  present  day,  we 
soon  found  ourselves  at  the  foot  of  the  Hill  Difficulty. 
Through  the  very  heart  of  this  rocky  mountain  a  tunnel 
had  been  constructed,  of  most  admirable  architecture,  with 
a  lofty  arch  and  a  spacious  double  track;  so  that,  unless 
the  earth  and  rocks  should  chance  to  crumble  down,  it  will 
remain  an  eternal  monument  of  the  builder's  skill  and  en 
terprise.  It  is  a  great  though  incidental  advantage  that 
the  materials  from  the  heart  of  the  Hill  Difficulty  have 
been  employed  in  filling  up  the  Valley  of  Humiliation, 
thus  obviating  the  necessity  of  decending  into  that  dis 
agreeable  and  unwholesome  hollow. 

"  This  is  a  wonderful  improvement,  indeed,"  said  I. 
"  Yet  I  should  have  been  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  visit 
the  Palace  Beautiful  and  be  introduced  "to  the  charming 
young  ladies — Miss  Prudence,  Miss  Piety,  Miss  Charity, 
and  the  rest — who  have  the  kindness  to  entertain  pilgrims 
there." 

" '  Young  ladies ' ! "  cried  Mr.  Smooth-it-Away,  as  soon 
as  he  could  speak  for  laughing.  "  And  charming  young 
ladies!  Why,  my  dear  fellow,  they  are  old  maids,  every 
soul  of  them — prim,  starched,  dry  and  angular — and  not 
one  of  them,  I  will  venture  to  say,  has  altered  so  much  as 
the  fashion  of  her  gown  since  the  days  of  Christian's  pil 
grimage." 

"  Ah,  well!"  said  I,  much  comforted;  <(  then  I  can  very 
readily  dispense  with  their  acquaintance," 


THE  CELESTIAL  RAILROAD.  155 

The  respectable  Apollyon  was  now  putting  on  the  steam 
at  a  prodigious  rate — anxious,  perhaps,  to  get  rid  of  the 
unpleasant  reminiscences  connected  with  the  spot  where  he 
had  so  disastrously  encountered  Christian. 

Consulting  Mr.  Banyan's  road-book,  I  perceived  that 
we  must  now  be  within  a  few  miles  of  the  Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death,  into  which  doleful  region,  at  our  present 
speed,  we  should  plunge  much  sooner  than  seemed  at  all 
desirable.  In  truth,  I  expected  nothing  better  than  to 
find  myself  in  the  ditch  on  one  side  or  the  quag  on  the 
other.  But  on  my  communicating  my  apprehensions  to 
Mr.  Smooth-it-A\vay  he  assured  me  that  the  difficulties  of 
this  passage,  even  in  its  worst  condition,  had  been  vastly 
exaggerated,  and  that  in  its  present  state  of  improvement 
I  might  consider  myself  as  safe  as  on  any  railroad  in 
Christendom. 

Even  while  we  were  speaking  the  train  shot  into  the  en 
trance  of  this  dreaded  valley.  Though  I  plead  guilty  to 
some  foolish  palpitations  of  the  heart  during  our  headlong 
rush  over  the  causeway  here  constructed,  yet  it  were  un 
just  to  withold  the  highest  encomiums  on  the  boldness  of 
its  original  conception  and  the  ingenuity  of  those  Avho  exe 
cuted  it.  It  was  gratifying,  likewise,  to  observe  how  much 
care  had  been  taken  to  dispel  the  everlasting  gloom  and 
supply  the  defect  of  cheerful  sunshine,  not  a  ray  of  which 
has  ever  penetrated  among  those  awful  shadows.  For  this 
purpose  the  inflammable  gas  which  exudes  plentifully  from 
the  soil  is  collected  by  means  of  pipes,  and  thence  commu 
nicated  to  a  quadrupled  row  of  lamps  along  the  whole  ex 
tent  of  the  passage.  Thus  a  radiance  has  been  created 
even  out  of  the  fiery  and  sulphurous  curse  that  rests  for-\ 
ever  upon  the  Valley — a  radiance  hurtful,  however,  to  the 
eyes,  and  somewhat  bewildering,  as  I  discovered  by  the 
changes  which  it  wrought  in  the  visages  of  my  companions. 
In  this  respect,  as  compared  with  natural  daylight,  there 
is  the  same  difference  as  between  truth  and  falsehood;  but 
if  the  reader  have  ever  traveled  through  the  dark  valley,  he 
will  have  learned  to  be  thankful  for  any  light  that  he  could 
get — if  not  from  the  sky  above,  then  from  the  blasted  soil 
beneath.  Such  was  the  red  brilliancy  of  these  lamps  that 
they  appeared  to  build  walls  of  fire  on  both  sides  of  the 
track,  between  which  we  held  our  course  at  lightning 
speed,  while  a  reverberating  thunder  filled  the  valley  with 


156  MOSSKS  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

its  echoes.  Had  the  engine  run  off  the  track — a  catas 
trophe,  it  is  whispered,  by  no  means  unprecedented — the 
bottomless  pit,  if  there  be  any  such  place,  would  undoubt 
edly  have  received  us.  Just  as  some  dismal  fooleries  of 
this  nature  had  made  my  heart  quake  there  came  a  tremen 
dous  shriek  careering  along  the  Valley  as  if  a  thousand 
devils  had  burst  their  lungs  to  utter  it,  but  which  proved 
to  be  merely  the  whistle  of  the  engine  011  arriving  at  a 
stopping-place. 

The  spot  where  we  had  now  paused  is  the  same  that  our 
friend  Bunyan — truthful  man,  but  infected  with  many  fan 
tastic  notions — has  designated  in  terms  plainer  than  I  like 
to  repeat  as  the  mouth  of  the  infernal  region.  This,  how 
ever,  must  be  a  mistake,  inasmuch  as  Mr.  Smooth-it- 
Away,  while  we  remained  in  the  smoky  and  lurid  cavern, 
took  occasion  to  prove  that  Tophet  has  not  even  a  meta 
phorical  existence.  The  place,  he  assured  us,  is  no  other 
than  the  crater  of  a  half-extinct  volcano  in  which  the 
directors  had  caused  forges  to  be  set  up  for  the  manufact 
ure  of  railroad-iron.  Hence,  also,  is  obtained  a  plentiful 
supply  of  fuel  for  the  use  of  the  engines.  Whoever  had 
gazed  into  the  dismal  obscurity  of  the  broad  cavern-mouth, 
whence  ever  and  anon  darted  huge  tongues  of  dusky  flarne, 
and  had  seen  the  strange,  half -shaped  monsters  and  vis 
ions  of  faces  horribly  grotesque  into  which  the  smoke 
seemed  to  wreathe  itself,  and  had  heard  the  awful  murmurs 
and  shrieks  and  deep  shuddering  whispers  of  the  blast, 
sometimes  forming  themselves  into  words  almost  articulate, 
would  have  seized  upon  Mr.  Smooth-it-Away's  comfortable 
explanation  as  greedily  as  we  did.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
cavern,  moreover,  were  unlovely  personages — dark,  smoke- 
begrimed,  generally  deformed,  with  misshapen  feet  and 
a  glow  of  dusky  redness  in  their  eyes,  as  if  their  hearts  had 
caught  fire  and  were  blazing  out  of  the  upper  windows.  It 
struck  me  as  a  peculiarity  that  the  laborers  at  the  forge 
and  those  who  brought  fuel  to  the  engine,  when  they 
began  to  draw  short  breath,  positively  emitted  smoke  from 
their  mouths  and  nostrils. 

Among  the  idlers  about  the  train,  most  of  whom  were 
puffing  cigars  which  they  had  lighted  at  the  flame  of  the 
crater,  I  was  perplexed  to  notice  several  who  to  my  certain 
knowledge  had  heretofore  set  forth  by  railroad  for  the  Celes 
tial  City.  They  looked  dark,  wild  and  smoky,  with  a  singular 


THE  CELESTIAL  RAILROAD.  157 

resemblance,  indeed,  to  the  native  inhabitants,  like  whom, 
also,  they  had  a  disagreeable  propensity  to  ill-natured  gibes 
and  sneers,  the  habit  of  which  had  wrought  a  settled  con 
tortion  of  their  visages.  Having  been  on  speaking  terms 
with  one  of  these  persons — an  indolent,  good-for-nothing 
fellow  who  went  by  the  name  of  Take-it-Easy — I  called 
him  and  inquired  what  was  his  business  there. 

"Did  you  not  start/'  said  I,  "  f or  the  Celestial 
City?" 

"  That's  a  fact,"  said  Mr.  Take-it-Easy,  carelessly  puffing 
some  smoke  into  my  eyes;  "  but  I  heard  such  bad  accounts 
that  I  never  took  pains  to  climb  the  hill  on  which  the  city 
stands — no  business  doing,  no  fun  going  on,  nothing  to 
drink  and  no  smoking  allowed,  and  a  thrumming  of  church 
music  from  morning  till  night.  I  would  not  stay  in  such  a 
place  if  they  offered"  me  house-room  and  living  free." 

"  But,  my  good  Mr.  Take  it-Easy,"  cried  I,  "  why  take 
up  your  residence  here  of  all  places  in  the  world?" 

"  Oh,"  said  the  loafer,  with  a  grin,  "  it  is  very  warm 
hereabouts,  and  I  meet  with  plenty  of  old  acquaintances, 
and  altogether  the  place  suits  me.  I  hope  to  see  you  back 
again  some  day  soon.  A  pleasant  journey  to  you!" 

While  he  was  speaking  the  bell  of  the  engine  rang,  and 
we  dashed  away  after  dropping  a  few  passengers,  but  re 
ceiving  no  new  ones. 

Rattling  onward  through  the  valley,  we  were  dazzled 
with  the  fiercely  gleaming  gas-lamps,  as  before,  but  some 
times,  in  the  dark  of  intense  brightness,  grim  faces  that 
bore  the  aspect  and  expression  of  individual  sins  or  evil 
passions  seemed  to  thrust  themselves  through  the  veil  of 
light  glaring  upon  us  and  stretching  forth  a  great  dusky 
hand  as  if  to  impede  our  progress.  I  almost  thought  that 
they  were  my  own  sins  that  appalled  me  there.  These 
were  freaks  of  imagination — nothing  more,  certainly;  mere 
delusions  which  I  ought  to  be  heartily  ashamed  of — but  all 
through  the  dark  valley  I  was  tormented  and  pestered  and 
dolefully  bewildered  with  the  same  kind  of  waking  dreams. 
The  mephitic  gases  of  that  region  intoxicate  the  brain. 
As  the  light  of  natural  day,  however,  began  to  struggle 
with  the  glow  of  the  lanterns,  these  vain  imaginations  lost 
their  vividness,  and  finally  vanished  with  the  first  ray  of 
sunshine  that  greeted  our  escape  from  the  Valley  of  "the 
Shadow  of  Death.  Ere  we  had  gone  a  mile  beyond  it  I 


158  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

could  well-nigh  have  taken  my  oath  that  this  whole  gloomy 
passage  was  a  dream. 

At  the  end  of  the  valley,  as  John  Banyan  mentions,  is  a 
cavern  where  in  his  days  dwelt  two  cruel  giants,  Pope  and 
Pagan,  who  had  strewn  the  ground  about  their  residence 
with  the  bones  of  slaughtered  pilgrims.  These  vile  old 
troglodytes  are  no  longer  there,  but  in  their  deserted  cave 
another  terrible  giant  has  thrust  himself,  and  makes  it  his 
business  to  seize  upon  honest  travelers  and  fat  them  for 
his  table  with  plentiful  meals  of  smoke,  mist,  moonshine, 
raw  potatoes  and  sawdust.  He  is  a  German  by  birth,  and 
is  called  Giant  Transcendentalist;  but  as  to  his  form,  his 
features,  his  substance,  and  his  nature  generally,  it  is  the 
chief  peculiarity  of  this  huge  miscreant  that  neither  he  for 
himself  nor  anybody  for  him  has  ever  been  able  to  describe 
them.  As  we  rushed  by  the  cavern's  mouth  we  caught  a 
hasty  glimpse  of  him,  looking  somewhat  like  an  ill-propor 
tioned  figure,  but  considerably  more  like  a  heap  of  fog  and 
duskiness.  He  shouted  after  us,  but  in  so  strange  a  phrase 
ology  that  we  knew  not  what  he  meant,  nor  whether  to  be 
encouraged  or  affrighted. 

It  was  late  in  the  day  when  the  train  thundered  into  the 
ancient  City  of  Vanity,  where  Vanity  Fair  is  still  at  the 
height  of  prosperity  and  exhibits  an  epitome  of  whatever  is 
brilliant,  gay  and  fascinating  beneath  the  sun.  As  I  pur 
posed  to  make  a  considerable  stay  here,  it  gratified  me  to 
learn  that  there  is  no  longer  the  want  of  harmony  between 
the  towns-people  and  pilgrims  which  impelled  the  former 
to  such  lamentably  mistaken  measures  as  the  persecution 
of  Christian  and  the  fiery  martyrdom  of  Faithful.  On  the 
contrary,  as  the  new  railroad  brings  with  it  great  trade 
and  a  constant  influx  of  strangers,  the  lord  of  Vanity  Fair 
is  its  chief  patron  and  the  capitalists  of  the  city  are  among 
the  largest  stockholders.  Many  passengers  stop  to  take 
their  pleasure  or  make  their  profit  in  the  fair,  instead  of 
going  onward  to  the  Celestial  City.  Indeed,  such  are  the 
charms  of  the  place  that  people  often  affirm  it  to  be  the 
true  and  only  heaven,  stoutly  contending  that  there  is  no 
other,  that  those  who  seek  further  are  mere  dreamers,  and 
that  if  the  fabled  brightness  of  the  Celestial  City  lay  but  a 
bare  mile  beyond  the  gates  of  Vanity  they  would  not  be 
fools  enough  to  go  thither.  Without  subscribing  to  these 
perhaps  exaggerated  encomiums,  I  can  truly  say  that  my 


THE  CELESTIAL  RAILROAD.  159 

abode  in  the  city  was  mainly  agreeable  and  my  intercourse 
with  the  inhabitants  productive  of  much  amusement  and 
instruction. 

Being  naturally  of  a  serious  turn,  my  attention  was  di 
rected  to  the  solid  advantages  derivable  from  a  residence 
here,  rather  than  to  the  effervescent  pleasures  which  are 
the  grand  object  with  too  many  visitants.  The  Christian 
reader,  if  he  have  had  no  accounts  of  the  city  later  than 
Bunyan's  time,  will  be  surprised  to  hear  that  almost  every 
street  has  its  church,  and  that  the  reverend  clergy  are  no 
where  held  in  higher  respect  than  at  Vanity  Fair.  And 
well  do  they  deserve  such  honorable  estimation,  for  the 
maxims  of  wisdom  and  virtue  which  fall  from  their  lips 
come  from  as  deep  a  spiritual  source  and  tend  to  as  lofty  a 
religious  aim  as  those  of  the  sagest  philosophers  of  old.  In 
justification  of  this  high  praise  I  need  only  mention  the 
names  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Shallow-Deep,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Stumble- 
at-Trtith,  that  fine  old  clerical  character  the  Rev.  Mr.  This- 
to-Dav,  who  expects  shortly  to  resign  his  pulpit  to  the  Rev. 
Mr.  That-to-Morrow,  together  with  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bewil 
derment,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Clog-the-Spirit,  and,  last  and  great 
est,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Wind-of-Doctrine.  The  labors  of  these 
eminent  divines  are  aided  by  those  of  innumerable  lectur 
ers,  who  diffuse  such  a  various  profoundly  in  all  subjects 
of  human  or  celestial  science  that  any  man  may  acquire  an 
omnigenous  erudition  without  the  trouble  of  even  learning 
to  read.  Thus  literature  is  etherealized  by  assuming  for 
its  medium  the  human  voice,  and  knowledge,  depositing 
all  its  heavier  particles — except,  doubtless,  its  gold — be 
comes  exhaled  into  a  sound  which  forthwith  steals  into  the 
ever-open  ear  of  the  community.  These  ingenious  methods 
constitute  a  sort  of  machinery  by  which  thought  and 
study  are  done  to  every  person's  hand  without  his  put 
ting  himself  to  the  slightest  inconvenience  in  the  matter. 
There  is  another  species  of  machine  for  the  wholesale 
manufacture  of  individual  morality.  This  excellent  result 
is  effected  by  societies  for  all  manner  of  virtuous  purposes, 
and  with  which  a  man  has  merely  to  connect  himself, 
throwing,  as  it  were,  his  quota  of  virtue  into  the  common 
stock,  and  the  president  and  directors  will  take  care  that 
the  aggregate  amount  be  well  applied.  All  these,  and 
other  wonderful  improvements  in  ethics,  religion  and 
literature,  being  made  plain  to  my  comprehension  by  the 


160  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

ingenious  Mr.  Smooth-it-Away,  inspired  me  with  a  vast 
admiration  of  Vanity  Fair. 

It  would  fill  a  volume  in  an  age  of  pamphlets  were  I  to 
record  all  my  observations  in  this  great  capital  of  human 
business  and  pleasure.  There  was  an  unlimited  range  of 
society — the  powerful,  the  wise,  the  witty  and  the  famous 
in  every  walk  of  life,  princes,  presidents,  poets,  generals, 
artists,  actors  and  philanthropists — all  making  their  own 
market  at  the  fair  and  deeming  no  price  too  exorbitant 
for  such  commodities  as  hit  their  fancy.  It  was  well  worth 
one's  while,  even  if  he  had  no  idea  of  buying  or  selling,  to 
loiter  through  the  bazaars  and  observe  the  various  sorts  of 
traffic  that  were  going  forward. 

Some  of  the  purchasers,  I  thought,  made  very  foolish 
bargains.  For  instance,  a  young  man  having  inherited  a 
splendid  fortune  laid  out  a  considerable  portion  of  it  in  the 
purchase  of  diseases,  and  finally  spent  all  the  rest  for  a 
heavy  lot  of  repentance  and  a  suit  of  rags.  A  very  pretty 
girl  bartered  a  heart  as  clear  as  crystal,  and  which  seemed 
her  most  valuable  possession,  for  another  jewel  of  the  same 
kind,  but  so  worn  and  defaced  as  to  be  utterly  worthless. 
In  one  shop  there  were  a  great  many  crowns  of  laurel  and 
myrtle  which  soldiers,  authors,  statesmen  and  various  other 
people  pressed  eagerly  to  buy.  Some  purchased  these 
paltry  wreaths  with  their  lives,  others  by  a  toilsome  servi 
tude  of  years,  and  many  sacrificed  whatever  was  most 
valuable,  yet  finally  slunk  away  without  the  crown.  There 
was  a  sort  of  stock  or  scrip  called  Conscience  which  seemed 
to  be  in  great  demand,  and  would  purchase  almost  any 
thing.  Indeed,  few  rich  commodities  were  to  be  obtained 
without  paying  a  heavy  sum  in  this  particular  stock,  and  a 
man's  business  was  seldom  very  lucrative  unless  he  knew 
precisely  when  and  how  to  throw  his  hoard  of  Conscience 
into  the  market.  Yet,  as  this  stock  was  the  only  thing  of 
permanent  value,  whoever  parted  with  it  was  sure  to  find 
himself  a  loser  in  the  long  run.  Several  of  the  specula 
tions  were  of  a  questionable  character.  Occasionally  a 
member  of  Congress  recruited  his  pocket  by  the  sale  of  his 
constituents,  and  I  was  assured  that  public  officers  have 
often  sold  their  country  at  very  moderate  prices.  Thou 
sands  sold  their  happiness  for  a  whim.  Gilded  chains 
were  in  great  demand  and  purchased  with  almost  any  sac 
rifice.  In  truth,  those  who  desired,  according  to  the  old 


Til E  CELESTIAL  RAILROAD.  161 

adage,  to  sell  anything  valuable  for  a  song,  might  find 
customers  all  over  the  fair,  and  there  were  innumerable 
messes  of  pottage,  piping  hot,  for  such  as  chose  to  buy 
them  with  their  birthrights.  A  few  articles,  however, 
could  not  be  found  genuine  at  Vanity  Fair.  If  a  cus 
tomer  wished  to  renew  his  stock  of  youth,  the  dealers 
offered  him  a  set  of  false  teeth  and  an  auburn  wig;  if  he 
demanded  piece  of  mind,  they  recommended  opium  or  a 
brandy-bottle. 

Tracts  of  land  and  golden  mansions  situate  in  the  Celes 
tial  City  were  often  exchanged  at  very  disadvantageous  rates 
for  a  few  years'  lease  of  small,  dismal,  inconvenient  tene 
ments  in  Vanity  Fair.  Prince  Beelzebub  himself  took 
great  interest  in  this  sort  of  traffic,  and  sometimes  conde 
scended  to  meddle  with  smaller  matters.  I  once  had  the 
pleasure  to  see  him  bargaining  with  a  miser  for  his  soul, 
which,  after  much  ingenious  skirmishing  on  both  sides, 
His  Highness  succeeded  in  obtaining  at  about  the  value  of 
sixpence.  The  prince  remarked  with  a  smile  that  he  was 
a  loser  by  the  transaction. 

Day  after  day,  as  I  walked  the  streets  of  Vanity,  my 
manners  and  deportment  became  more  and  more  like  those 
of  the  inhabitants.  The  place  began  to  seem  like  home; 
the  idea  of  pursuing  my  travels  to  the  Celestial  City  was 
almost  obliterated  from  my  mind.  I  was  reminded  of  it, 
however,  by  the  sight  of  the  same  pair  of  simple  pilgrims 
at  whom  we  had  laughed  so  heartily  when  Apollyon  puffed 
smoke  and  steam  into  their  faces  at  the  commencement  of 
our  journey.  There  they  stood  amid  the  densest  bustle  of 
Vanity,  the  dealers  offering  them  their  purple  and  tine 
linen  and  jewels,  the  men  of  wit  and  humor  gibing  at 
them,  a  pair  of  buxom  ladies  ogling  them  askance,  while 
the  benevolent  Mr.  Smooth-it-Away  whispered  some  of  his 
wisdom  at  their  elbows  and  pointed  to  a  newly  erected 
temple;  but  there  were  these  worthy  simpletons  making 
the  scene  look  wild  and  monstrous  merely  by  their  sturdy 
repudiation  of  all  part  in  its  business  or  pleasures. 

One  of  them — his  name  was  Stick-to-the-Right — per 
ceived  in  my  face,  I  suppose,  a  species  of  sympathy  and 
almost  admiration,  which,  to  my  own  great  surprise,  I 
could  not  help  feeling  for  this  pragmatic  couple.  It 
prompted  him  to  address  me. 

"  Sir,"  inquired  he,  with  a  sad  yet  mild  and  kindly  voice, 
"  do  you  call  yourself  a  pilgrim?" 


162  MOSSES  FROM  ON  OLD  MANSE. 

"Yes/' I  replied;  " my  right  to  that  appellation  is  in 
dubitable.  I  am  merely  a  sojotirner  here  in  Vanity  Fair, 
being  bound  to  the  Celestial  City  by  the  new  railroad." 

"Alas,  friend!7'  rejoined  Mr.  Stick-to-the- Right;  "I  do 
assure  you  and  beseech  you  to  receive  the  truth  of  my 
words,  that  the  whole  concern  is  a  bubble.  You  may 
travel  on  it  all  your  lifetime,  were  you  to  live  thousands  of 
years,  and  yet  never  get  beyond  the  limits  of  Vanity  Fair. 
Yea,  though  you  should  deem  yourself  entering  the  gates 
of  the  blessed  city,  it  will  be  nothing  but  a  miserable  de 
lusion." 

"  The  Lord  of  the  Celestial  City,"  began  the  other  pil 
grim,  whose  name  was  Mr.  Foot-it  to-Heaven,  "  has  re 
fused,  and  will  ever  refuse,  to  grant  an  act  of  incorporation 
for  this  railroad,  and  unless  that  be  obtained  no  passenger 
can  ever  hope  to  enter  his  dominions;  where  fore  every  man 
who  buys  a  ticket  must  lay  his  account  with  losing  the  pur 
chase  money,  which  is  the  value  of  his  own  soul." 

"  Poh!  nonsense!"  said  Mr.  Smooth-it- Away,  taking  my 
arm  and  leading  me  away;  "  these  fellows  ought  to  be  in 
dicted  for  a  libel.  If  the  law  stood  as  it  once  did  in 
Vanity  Fair  we  should  see  them  grinning  through  the  iron 
bars  of  the  prison  window." 

This  incident  made  a  considerable  impression  on  my 
mind  and  contributed  with  other  circumstances  to  in 
dispose  me  to  a  permanent  residence  in  the  City  of  Vanity, 
although,  of  course,  I  was  not  simple  enough  to  give  up 
my  original  plan  of  gliding  along  easily  and  commodiously 
by  railroad.  Still,  1  grew  anxious  to  be  gone.  There  was 
one  strange  thing  that  troubled  me;  amid  the  occupations 
or  amusements  of  the  fair,  nothing  was  more  common  than 
for  a  person — whether  at  a  feast,  theater  or  church,  or 
trafficking  for  wealth  and  honors  or  whatever  he  might  be 
doing,  and,  however  unreasonable  the  interruption — sud 
denly  to  vanish  like  a  soap-bubble  and  be  nevermore  seen 
of  his  fellows;  and  so  accustomed  were  the  latter  to  such 
little  incidents  that  they  went  on  with  their  business  as 
quietly  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  But  it  was  otherwise 
with  me. 

Finally,  after  a  pretty  long  residence  at  the  fair,  I  re 
sumed  my  journey  toward  the  Celestial  City,  still  with 
Mr.  Smooth -it- Away  at  my  side.  At  a  short  distance  be 
yond  the  suburbs  of  Vanity  we  passed  the  ancient  silver 


THE  CELESTIAL  RAILROAD.  163 

mine  of  which  Demas  was  the  first  discoverer  and  which  is 
now  wrought  to  great  advantage,  supplying  nearly  all  the 
coined  currency  of  the  world.  A  little  farther  onward  was 
the  spot  where  Lot's  wife  had  stood  for  ages  under  the 
semblance  of  a  pillar  of  salt.  Curious  travelers  have  long 
since  carried  it  away  piecemeal.  Had  all  regrets  been  pun 
ished  as  rigorously  as  this  poor  dame's  were,  my  yearning 
for  the  relinquished  delights  of  Vanity  Fair .  might  have 
produced  a  similar  change  in  my  own  corporeal  substance 
and  left  me  a  warning  to  future  pilgrims. 

The  next  remarkable  object  was  a  large  edifice  con 
structed  of  moss-grown  stone,  but  in  a  modern  and  airy 
style  of  architecture.  The  engine  came  to  a  pause  in  its 
vicinity  with  the  usual  tremendous  shriek. 

"  This  was  formerly  the  castle  of  the  redoubted  Giant 
Despair/'  observed  Mr.  Smooth-it- A  way,  "  but  since  his 
death  Mr.  Flimsy  Faith  has  repaired  it  and  now  keeps  an 
excellent  house  of  entertainment  here.  It  is  one  of  our 
stopping-places." 

"  It  seems  but  slightly  put  together,"  remarked  I,  look 
ing  at  the  frail  yet  ponderous  walls.  "  I  do  not  envy 
Mr.  Flimsy-Faith  his  habitation.  Some  day  it  will  thunder 
down  upon  the  heads  of  the  occupants. 

"We  shall  escape,  at  all  events,"  said  Mr.  Smooth-it- 
Away,  "for  Apollyon  is  putting  on  the  steam  again." 

The  road  now  plunged  into  a  gorge  of  the  Delectable 
Mountains,  and  traversed  the  field  where,  in  former  ages, 
the  blind  men  wandered  and  stumbled  among  the  tombs. 
One  of  these  ancient  tombstones  had  been  thrust  across  the 
track  by  some  malicious  person  and  gave  the  train  of  cars 
a  terrible  jolt.  Far  up  the  rugged  side  of  a  mountain  I 
perceived  a  rusty  iron  door  half  overgrown  with  bushes 
and  creeping  plants,  but  with  smoke  issuing  from  its  crev 
ices. 

"Is  that,"  inquired  I,  "the  very  door  in  the  hillside 
which  the  shepherds  assured  Christian  was  a  by-way  to 
hell?" 

"  That  was  a  joke  on  the  part  of  the  shepherds,"  said 
Mr.  Smooth-it- Away,  with  a  smile.  "  It  is  neither  more 
nor  less  than  the  door  of  a  cavern  which  they  use  as  a 
smoke-house  for  the  preparation  of  mutton-hams." 

My  recollections  of  the  journey  are  now  for  a  little  space 
dim  and  confused,  inasmuch  as  a  singular  drowsiness  here 


164  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANtiK. 

overcame  me,  owing  to  the  fact  that  we  were  passing  over 
the  Enchanted  Ground,  the  air  of  which  encourages  a  dis 
position  to  sleep.  I  awoke,  however,  as  soon  as  we  crossed 
the  borders  of  the  pleasant  Land  of  Beulah.  All  the  pas 
sengers  were  rubbing  their  eyes,  comparing  watches  and 
congratulating  one  another  on  the  prospect  of  arriving  so 
seasonably  at  the  journey's  end.  The  sweet  breezes  of  this 
happy  clime  came  refreshingly  to  our  nostrils;  we  beheld 
the  glimmering  gush  of  silver  fountains  overhung  by  trees 
of  beautiful  foliage  and  delicious  fruit,  which  were  propa 
gated  by  grafts  from  the  celestial  gardens.  Once,  as  we 
dashed  onward  like  a  hurricane,  there  was  a  flutter  of  wings 
and  the  bright  appearance  of  an  angel  in  the  air  speeding 
forth  on  some  heavenly  mission. 

The  engine  now  announced  the  close  vicinity  of  the  final 
station-house  by  one  last  and  horrible  scream  in  which 
there  seemed  to  be  distinguishable  every  kind  of  wailing 
and  woe  and  bitter  fierceness  of  wrath,  all  mixed  up  with 
the  wild  laughter  of  a  devil  or  a  madman.  Throughout 
our  journey,  at  every  stopping-place,  Apollyon  had  exer 
cised  his  ingenuity  in  screwing  the  most  abominable 
sounds  out  of  the  whistle  of  the  steam-engine,  but  in  this 
closing  effort  he  outdid  himself,  and  created  an  infernal 
uproar  which,  besides  disturbing  the  peaceful  inhabitants 
of  Beulah,  must  have  sent  its  discord  even  through  the 
celestial  gates. 

While  the  horrid  clamor  was  still  ringing  in  our  ears  we 
heard  an  exulting  strain,  as  if  a  thousand  instruments  of 
music  with  height  and  depth  and  sweetness  in  their  tones, 
at  once  tender  and  triumphant,  were  struck  in  unison  to 
greet  the  approach  of  some  illustrious  hero  who  had  fought 
the  good  fight  and  won  a  glorious  victory,  and  was  come  to 
lay  aside  his  battered  arms  forever.  Looking  to  ascertain 
what  might  be  the  occasion  of  this  glad  harmony,  I  per 
ceived,  on  alighting  from  the  cars,  that  a  multitude  of 
shining  ones  had  assembled  on  the  other  side  of  the  river 
to  welcome  two  poor  pilgrims  who  were  just  emerging  from 
its  depths.  They  were  the  same  whom  Apollyon  and  our 
selves  had  persecuted  with  taunts  and  gibes  and  scalding 
steam  at  the  commencement  of  our  journey — the  same 
whose  unworldly  aspect  and  impressive  words  had  stirred 
my  conscience  amid  the  wild  revellers  of  Vanity  Fair. 

"How  amazingly  well  those  men  have  got  on!"  cried  I 


THE  CELESTIAL  RAILROAD.  165 

to  Mr.  Smootli-it-Away.  "  I  wish  we  were  secure  of  as 
good  a  reception." 

"Never  fear!  never  fear!"  answered  my  friend.  "Come! 
make  haste.  The  ferry-boat  will  be  off  directly,  and  in 
three  minutes  you  will  be  on  the  other  side  of  the  river. 
No  doubt  you  will  find  coaches  to  carry  you  up  to  the  city 
gates." 

A  steam  ferry-boat — the  last  improvement  on  this  im 
portant  route — lay  at  the  river-side  puffing,  snorting  and 
emitting  all  those  other  disagreeable  utterances  which  be 
token  the  departure  to  be  immediate.  I  hurried  on  board 
with  the  rest  of  the  passengers,  most  of  whom  were  in  great 
perturbation,  some  bawling  out  for  their  baggage,  some 
tearing  their  hair  and  exclaiming  that  the  boat  would  ex 
plode  or  sink,  some  already  pale  with  the  heaving  of  the 
stream,  some  gazing  affrighted  at  the  ugly  aspect  of  the 
steersman,  and  some  still  dizzy  with  the  slumberous  in 
fluences  of  the  Enchanted  Ground. 

Looking  back  to  the  shore,  I  was  amazed  to  discern  Mr. 
Smooth-it- A  way  waving  his  hand  in  token  of  farewell. 

"  Don't  you  go  over  to  the  Celestial  City?  "  exclaimed  I. 

"  Oil,  no  !  "  answered  he,  with  a  queer  smile  and  that 
same  disagreeable  contortion  of  visage  which  I  had  re 
marked  in  the  inhabitants  of  the  dark  valley,  "oh,  no  ! 
I  have  come  thus  far  only  for  the  sake  of  your  pleasant 
company.  Good-bye  !  We  shall  meet  again." 

And  then  did  my  excellent  friend,  Mr.  Smooth-it- Away, 
laugh  outright ;  in  the  midst  of  which  cachinnation  a 
smoke-wreath  issued  from  his  mouth  and  nostrils,  while  a 
twinkle  of  lurid  flame  darted  out  of  either  eye,  proving 
indubitably  that  his  heart  was  all  of  a  red  blaze.  The 
impudent  fiend  !  To  deny  the  existence  of  Tophet  when 
he  felt  its  fiery  tortures  raging  within  his  breast !  I  rushed 
to  the  side  of  the  boat,  intending  to  fling  myself  on  shore, 
but  the  wheels,  as  they  began  their  revolutions,  threw  a 
dash  of  spray  over  me,  so  cold — so  deadly  cold  with  the 
chill  that  will  never  leave  those  waters  until  Death  be 
drowned  in  his  own  river — that  with  a  shiver  and  a  heart- 
quake  I  awoke. 

Thank  Heaven  !  it  was  a  dream. 


166  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 


THE  PROCESSION  OF  LIFE. 


LIFE  figures  itself  to  me  as  a  festal  or  funeral  procession. 
All  of  us  have  our  places  and  are  to  move  onward  under  the 
direction  of  the  chief  marshal.  The  grand  difficulty  results 
from  the  invariably  mistaken  principles  on  which  the 
deputy  marshals  seek  to  arrange  this  immense  concourse 
of  people,  so  much  more  numerous  than  those  that  train 
their  interminable  length  through  streets  and  highways  in 
times  of  political  excitement.  Their  scheme  is  ancient  far 
beyond  the  memory  of  man,  or  even  the  record  of  history, 
and  has  hitherto  been  very  little  modified  by  the  innate 
sense  of  something  wrong  and  the  dim  perception  of  better 
methods  that  have  disquieted  all  the  ages  through  which 
the  procession  has  taken  its  march.  Its  members  are  classi 
fied  by  the  merest  external  circumstances,  and  thus  are 
more  certain  to  be  thrown  out  of  their  true  positions  than 
if  no  principle  of  arrangement  were  attempted.  In  one 
part  of  the  procession  we  see  men  of  landed  estate  or  mon 
eyed  capital  gravely  keeping  each  other  company  for  the 
preposterous  reason  that  they  chance  to  have  a  similar 
standing  in  the  tax-gather's  book.  Trades  and  profes 
sions  march  together  with  scarcely  a  more  real  bond  of 
union.  In  this  manner,  it  cannot  be  denied,  people  are 
disentangled  from  the  mass  and  separated  into  various  classes 
according  to  certain  apparent  relations;  all  have  some  arti 
ficial  badge  which  the  world,  and  themselves  among  the 
first,  learn  to  consider  as  a  genuine  characteristic.  Fixing 
our  attention  on  such  outside  shows  of  similarity  or  differ 
ence,  we  lose  sight  of  those  realities  by  which  nature,  For 
tune,  Fate  or  Providence  has  constituted  for  every  man  a 
brotherhood  wherein  it  is  one  great  office  of  human  wisdom 
to  classify  him.  When  the  mind  has  once  accustomed  it- 


THE  PROCESSION  OF  LIFE.  107 

self  to  a  proper  arrangement  of  the  procession  of  life  or  a 
true  classification  of  society,  even  though  merely  specula 
tive,  there  is  thenceforth  a  satisfaction  which  pretty  well 
suffices  for  itself,  without  the  aid  of  any  actual  reformation 
in  the  order  of  march. 

For  instance,  assuming  to  myself  the  power  of  marshal 
ling  the  aforesaid  procession,  I  direct  a  trumpeter  to  send 
forth  a  blast  loud  enough  to  be  heard  from  hence  to  China 
and  a  herald  with  world-pervading  voice  to  make  procla 
mation  for  a  certain  class  of  mortals  to  take  their  places. 
What  shall  be  their  principle  of  union?  After  all,  an 
external  one,  in  comparison  with  many  that  might  be 
found,  yet  far  more  real  than  those  which  the  world  has 
selected  for  a  similar  purpose.  Let  all  who  are  afflicted 
with  like  physical  diseases  form  themselves  into  ranks. 

Our  first  attempt  at  classification  is  not  very  successful. 
It  may  gratify  the  pride  of  aristocracy  to  reflect  that  dis 
ease  more  than  any  other  circumstance  of  human  life  pays 
due  observance  to  the  distinctions  which  rank  and  wealth 
and  poverty  and  lowliness  have  established  among  mankind. 
Some  maladies  are  rich  and  precious  and  only  to  be  ac 
quired  by  the  right  of  inheritance  or  purchased  with  gold. 
Of  this  kind  is  the  gout,  which  serves  as  a  bond  of  brother 
hood  to  the  purple-visaged  gentry  wrho  obey  the  herald's 
voice  and  painfully  hobble  from  all  civilized  regions  of  the 
globe  to  take  their  post  in  the  grand  procession.  In  mercy 
to  their  toes,  let  us  hope  that  the  march  may  not  be  long. 
The  dyspeptics,  too,  are  people  of  good  standing  in  the 
world.  For  them  the  earliest  salmon  is  caught  in  our 
eastern  rivers  and  the  shy  woodcock  stains  the  dry  leaves 
with  his  blood  in  his  remotest  haunts  and  the  turtle  comes 
from  the  far  Pacific  islands  to  be  gobbled  up  in  soup. 
They  can  afford  to  flavor  all  their  dishes  with  indolence, 
which,  in  spite  of  the  general  opinion,  is  a  sauce  more  ex- 
quistly  piquant  than  appetite  wron  by  exercise.  Apoplexy 
is  another  highly-respectable  disease.  We  will  rank  to 
gether  all  who  have  the  symptom  of  dizziness  in  the  brain 
and  as  fast  as  any  drop  by  the  way  supply  their  places  with 
new  members  of  the  board  of  aldermen. 

On  the  other  hand,  here  come  whole  tribes  of  people 
whose  physical  lives  are  but  a  deteriorated  variety  of  life 
and  themselves  a  meaner  species  of  mankind,  so  sad  an 
effect  has  been  wrought  by  the  tainted  breath  of  cities, 


168  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

scanty  and  unwholesome  food,  destructive  modes  of  labor 
and  the  lack  of  those  moral  supports  that  might  partially 
have  counteracted  such  bad  influences.  Behold  here  a 
train  of  house-painters  all  afflicted  with  a  peculiar  sort  of 
colic.  Next  in  place  we  will  marshal  those  workmen  in 
cutlery  who  have  breathed  a  fatal  disorder  into  their  lungs 
with  the  impalpable  dust  of  steel.  Tailors  and  shoemakers, 
being  sedentary  men  will  chiefly  congregate  in  one  part  of 
the  procession  and  march  under  similar  banners  of  disease, 
but  among  them  we  may  observe  here  and  there  a  sickly 
student  who  has  left  his  health  between  the  leaves  of  classic 
volumes  and  clerks,  likewise,  who  have  caught  their  deaths 
on  high  official  stools  and  men  of  genius,  too,  who  have 
written  sheet  after  sheet  with  pens  dipped  in  their  heart's 
blood.  There  a  wretched,  quaking,  short-breathed  set. 
But  what  is  this  crowd  of  pale-cheeked,  slender  girls  who 
disturb  the  ear  with  the  multiplicity  of  their  short,  dry 
coughs?  They  are  seamstresses  who  have  plied  the  daily  and 
nightly  needle  in  the  service  of  master-tailors  and  close-fisted 
contractors  until  now  it  is  almost  time  for  each  of  them  to  hem 
the  borders  of  her  own  shroud.  Consumption  points  their 
place  in  the  procession.  With  their  sad  sisterhood  are  inter 
mingled  many  youthful  maidens  who  have  sickened  in 
aristocratic  mansions,  and  for  whose  aid  science  has  un- 
availingly  searched  its  volumes  and  whom  breathless  love 
has  watched.  In  our  ranks  the  rich  maiden  and  the  poor 
seemstress  may  walk  arm  in  arm.  We  might  find  in 
numerable  other  instances  where  the  bond  of  mutual  dis 
ease — not  to  speak  of  nation-sweeping  pestilence — embraces 
high  and  low  and  makes  the  king  a  brother  of  the  clown. 
But  it  is  not  hard  to  own  that  Disease  is  the  natural  aris 
tocrat.  Let  him  keep  his  state  and  have  his  established 
orders  of  rank  and  wear  his  royal  mantle  of  the  color  of  a 
fever-flush  and  let  the  noble  and  wealthy  boast  of  their  own 
physical  infirmities  and  display  their  symptoms  as  the 
badges  of  high  station.  All  things  considered,  these  are 
as  proper  subjects  of  human  pride  as  any  relations  of 
human  rank  that  men  can  fix  upon. 

Sound  again,  thou  deep-breathed  trumpeter  ! — and, 
herald,  with  thy  voice  of  might,  shout  forth  another 
summons  that  shall  reach  the  old  baronial  castles  of  Europe 
and  the  rudest  cabin  of  our  Western  wilderness  !  What 
class  is  next  to  take  its  place  in  the  procession  oi  mortal 


THE  PROCESSION  OP  LIFE.  1G9 

life?  Let  it  be  those  whom  the  gifts  of  intellect  have 
united  in  a  noble  brotherhood. 

Ay,  this  is  a  reality  before  which  the  conventional  dis 
tinctions  of  society  melt  away  like  a  vapor  when  we  would 
grasp  it  with  the  hand.  Were  Byron  now  alive  and  Burns 
the  first  would  come  from  his  ancestral  abbey  flinging  aside, 
although  unwillingly,  the  inherited  honors  of  a  thousand 
years  to  take  the  arm  of  the  mighty  peasant  who  grew  im 
mortal  while  he  stooped  behind  his  plow.  These  are 
gone,  but  the  hall,  the  farmer's  fireside,  the  hut — perhaps 
the  palace — the  counting-room,  the  workshop,  the  village 
the  city,  life's  high  places  and  low'  ones,  may  all  produce 
their  poets  whom  a  common  temperament  pervades  like  an 
electric  sympathy.  Peer  or  plowman  will  muster  them 
pair  by  pair  and  shoulder  to  shoulder.  Even  society  in  its 
most  artificial  state  consents  to  this  arrangement.  These 
factory-girls  from  Lowell  shall  mate  themselves  with  the 
pride  of  drawing-rooms  and  literary  circles — the  blue-bells 
in  fashion's  nosegay,  the  Sapphos  and  Montagues  and 
Xortons  of  the  age. 

Other  modes  of  intellect  bring  together  as  strange  com 
panies.  Silk-gowned  professor  of  languages,  give  your 
arm  to  this  sturdy  blacksmith  and  deem  yourself  honored 
by  the  conjunction,  though  behold  him  grimy  from  the 
anvil.  All  varieties  of  human  speech  are  like  his  mother- 
tongue  to  this  rare  man.  Indiscriminately  let  those  take 
their  places,  of  whatever  rank  they  come,  who  possess  the 
kingly  gifts  to  lead  armies  or  to  sway  a  people — Nature's 
generals,  her  lawyers,  her  kings  and  with  them,  also,  the 
deep  philosophers  who  think  the  thought  in  one  generation 
that  is  to  revolutionize  society  in  the  next.  With  the 
hereditary  legislator  in  whom  eloquence  is  a  far-descended 
attainment — a  rich  echo  repeated  by  powerful  voices,  from 
Cicero  downward — we  will  match  some  wondrous  back 
woodsman  who  has  caught  a  wild  power  of  language  from 
the  breeze  among  his  native  forest  boughs.  But  we  may 
safely  leave  brethren  and  sisterhood  to  settle  their  own 
congenialities.  Our  ordinary  distinctions  become  so  tri 
fling,  so  impalpable,  so  ridiculously  visionary,  in  compari 
son  with  a  classification  founded  on  truth,  that  all  talk 
about  the  matter  is  immediately  a  commonplace. 

Yet,  the  longer  I  reflect,  the  less  am  I  satisfied  with  the 
idea  of  forming  a  separate  class  of  mankind  on  the  basis 


170  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

of  high  intellectual  power.  At  best,  it  is  but  a  higher 
development  of  innate  gifts  common  to  all.  Perhaps, 
moreover,  he  whose  genius  appears  deepest  and  truest  ex 
cels  his  fellows  in  nothing  save  the  knack  of  expression  ; 
he  throws  out,  occasionally,  a  lucky  hint  at  truths  of 
which  every  human  soul  is  profoundly,  though  unutterably 
conscious.  Therefore,  though  we  suffer  the  brotherhood 
of  intellect  to  inarch  onward  together,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  their  peculiar  relation  will  not  begin  to  vanish  as 
soon  as  the  procession  shall  have  passed  beyond  the  circle 
of  this  present  world.  But  we  do  not  classify  for  eternity. 

And  next  let  the  trumpet  pour  forth  a  funeral  wail  and 
the  herald's  voice  give  breath  in  one  vast  cry  to  all  the 
groans  and  grievous  utterances  that  are  audible  throughout 
the  earth.  We  appeal  now  to  the  sacred  bond  of  sorrow, 
and  summon  the  great  multitude  who  labor  under  similar 
afflictions  to  take  their  places  in  the  march.  How  many  a 
heart  that  would  have  been  insensible  to  any  other  call  has 
responded  to  the  doleful  accents  of  that  voice!  It  has  gone 
far  and  wide  and  high  and  low,  and  left  scarcely  a  mortal 
roof  unvisited.  Indeed,  the  principal  is  only  too  universal 
for  our  purpose,  and  unless  we  limit  it  will  quite  break  up 
our  classification  of  mankind  and  convert  the  whole  proces 
sion  into  a  funeral 'train.  We  will,  therefore,  beat  some 
pains  to  discriminate. 

Here  comes  a  lonely  rich  man;  he  has  built  a  noble 
fabric  for  his  dwelling-house,  with  a  front  of  stately  archi 
tecture  and  marble  floors  and  doors  of  precious  wood. 
The  whole  structure  is  as  beautiful  as  a  dream  and  as  sub 
stantial  as  the  native  rock,  but  the  visionary  shapes  of  a 
long  posterity  for  whose  home  this  masion  was  intended 
have  faded  into  nothingness  since  the  death  of  the  founder's 
only  son.  The  rich  man  gives  a  glance  at  his  sable  garb 
in  one  of  the  splendid  mirrors  of  the  drawing-room,  and, 
descending  a  flight  of  lofty  steps,  instinctively  offers  his 
arm  to  yonder  poverty-stricken  widow  in  the  rusty  black 
bonnet  and  with  a  cheap  apron  over  her  patched  gown.  The 
sailor-boy  who  was  her  sole  earthly  stay  was  washed  over 
board  in  a  late  tempest.  This  couple  from  the  palace  and 
the  alms-house  are  but  the  types  of  thousands  more  who 
represent  the  dark  tragedy  of  life  and  seldom  quarrel  for 
the  upper  parts.  Grief  is  such  a  leveller  with  its  own  dignity 
and  its  own  humility  that  the  noble  and  the  peasant,  the 


THE  PROCESSION  OF  LIFE.  171 

beggar  and  the  monarch,  will  waive  their  pretention  to  ex 
ternal  rank  without  the  officiousness  of  interference  on  our 
part.  If  pride — the  influence  of  the  world's  false  distinctions 
—remain  in  the  heart,  then  sorrow  lacks  the  earnestness 
which  makes  it  holy  and  reverend.  It  loses  its  reality  and 
becomes  a  miserable  shadow.  On  this  ground  we  have  an 
opportunity  to  assign  over  multitudes  who  would  willingly 
claim  places  here  to  other  parts  of  the  procession.  If  the 
mourner  have  anything  dearer  than  his  grief,  he  must  seek 
his  true  position  elsewhere.  There  are  so  many  unsubstan 
tial  sorrows  which  the  necessity  of  our  mortal  state  begets 
on  idleness  that  an  observer,  casting  aside  sentiment,  is 
sometimes  led  to  question  whether  there  be  any  real  woe 
except  absolute  physical  suffering  and  the  loss  of  closest 
friends.  A  crowd  who  exhibit  what  they  deem  to  be  broken 
hearts — and  among  them  many  lovelorn  maids  and  bach 
elors,  and  men  of  disappointed  ambition  in  arts  and  politics, 
and  the  poor  who  were  once  rich  or  who  have  sought  to  be 
rich  in  vain — the  great  majority  of  these  may  ask  ad 
mittance  into  some  other  fraternity.  There  is  no  room 
here.  Perhaps  we  may  institute  a  separate  class  where 
such  unfortunates  will  naturally  fall  into  the  procession. 
Meanwhile,  let  them  stand  aside  and  patiently  await  their 
time. 

If  our  trumpeter  can  borrow  a  note  from  the  doomsday 
trumpet-blast,  let  him  sound  it  now.  The  dread  alarm 
should  make  the  earth  quake  to  its  center,  for  the  herald 
is  about  to  address  mankind  with  a  summons  to  which 
even  the  purest  mortal  may  be  sensible  of  some  faint  re 
sponding  echo  in  his  breast.  In  many  bosoms  it  will  awaken 
a  still  small  voice  more  terrible  than  its  own  reverberating 
uproar. 

The  hideous  appeal  has  swept  around  the  globe.  Come, 
all  ye  guilty  ones,  and  rank  yourselves  in  accordance  with 
the  brotherhood  of  crime.  This,  indeed,  is  an  awful  sum 
mons.  I  almost  tremble  to  look  at  the  strange  partnerships 
that  begin  to  be  formed — reluctantly,  but  by  the  invincible 
necessity  of  like  to  like — in  this  part  of  the  procession. 
A  forger  from  the  state  prison  seizes  the  arm  of  a  distin 
guished  financier.  How  indignantly  does  the  latter  plead 
his  fair  reputation  upon  "Change,  and  insist  that  his  opera 
tions  by  their  magnificence  of  scope  were  removed  into 
quite  another  sphere  of  morality  than  those  of  his  pitiful 


172  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

companion!  But  let  him  cut  the  connection  if  he  can. 
Here  comes  a  murderer  with  his  clanking  chains,  and 
pairs  himself — horrible  to  tell — with  as  pure  and  upright 
a  man  in  all  observable  respects  as  ever  partook  of  the 
consecrated  bread  and  wine.  He  is  one  of  those — per 
chance  the  most  hopeless  of  all  sinners — who  practice  such 
an  exemplary  system  of  outward  duties  that  even  a  deadly 
crime  mav  be  hidden  from  their  own  sight  and  remem 
brance  under  this  unreal  frost-work.  Yet  he  now  finds 
his  place.  Why  do  that  pair  of  flaunting  girls  with  the 
pert,  affected  laugh  and  the  sly  leer  at  the  bystanders  in 
trude  themselves  into  the  same  rank  with  yonder  decorous 
matron  and  that  somewhat  prudish  maiden?  Surely, 
these  poor  creatures,  born  to  vice  as  their  sole  and  natural 
inheritance  can  be  no  fit  associates  for  women  who  have 
been  guarded  round  about  by  all  the  proprieties  of  domestic 
life,  and  who  could  not  err  unless  they  first  created  the 
opportunity!  Oh,  no  !  It  must  be  merely  the  imperti 
nence  of  those  unblushing  hussies,  and  we  can  only  won 
der  how  such  respectable  ladies  should  have  responded  to  a 
summons  that  was  not  meant  for  them. 

We  shall  make  short  work  of  this  miserable  class,  each 
member  of  which  is  entitled  to  grasp  any  other  member's 
hand  by  that  vile  degradation  wherein  guilty  error  has 
buried  all  alike.  The  foul  fiend  to  whom  it  properly  be 
longs  must  relieve  us  of  our  loathsome  task.  Let  the 
bondservants  of  sin  pass  on.  But  neither  man  nor 
woman  in  whom  good  predominates  will  smile  or  sneer, 
nor  bid  the  Rogue's  March  be  played,  in  derision  of  their 
array.  Feeling  within  their  breasts  a  shuddering  sympathy 
which  at  least  gives  token  of  the  sin  that  might  have  been, 
they  will  thank  God  for  any  place  in  the  grand  procession 
of  human  existence  save  among  those  most  wretched  ones. 
Many,  however,  will  be  astonished  at  the  fatal  impulse 
that  "drags  them  thitherward.  Nothing  is  more  remarka 
ble  than  the  various  deceptions  by  which  guilt  conceals 
itself  from  the  perpetrator's  conscience,  and  oftenest, 
perhaps,  by  the  splendor  of  its  garments.  Statesmen, 
rulers,  generals,  arid  all  men  who  act  over  an  extensive 
sphere,  are  most  liable  to  be  deluded  in  this  way;  they  com 
mit  wrong,  devastation  and  murder  on  so  grand  a  scale 
that  it  impresses  them  as  speculative  rather  than  actual, 
but  in  our  procession  we  find  them  linked  in  detestable 


THE  PROCESSION  OF  LIFE.  173 

conjunction  with  the  meanest  criminals  whose  deeds  have 
the  vulgarity  of  petty  details.  Here  the  effect  of  circum 
stances  and  accident  is  done  away  and  a  man  finds  his  rank 
according  to  the  spirit  of  his  crime,  in  whatever  shape  it 
may  have  been  developed. 

We  have  called  the  evil;  now  let  us  call  the  good.  The 
trumpet's  brazen  throat  should  pour  heavenly  music  over 
the  earth  and  the  herald's  voice  go  forth  with  the  sweet 
ness  of  an  angel's  accents,  as  if  to  summon  each  upright 
man  to  his  reward.  But  how  is  this?  Does  none  answer 
to  the  call?  Not  one;  for  the  just,  the  pure,  the  true  and 
all  who  might  most  worthily  obey  it  shrink  sadly  back  as 
most  conscious  of  error  and  imperfection.  Then  let  the 
summons  be  to  those  whose  pervading  principle  is  love. 
This  classification  will  embrace  all  the  truly  good,  and 
none  in  whose  souls  there  exists  not  something  that  may 
expand  itself  into  a  heaven  both  of  well-doing  and  fe 
licity. 

The  first  that  presents  himself  is  a  man  of  wealth  who 
has  bequeathed  the  bulk  of  his  property  to  a  hospital;  his 
ghost,  methinks,  would  have  a  better  right  here  than  his 
living  body.  But  here  they  come,  the  genuine  benefactors 
of  their  race.  Some  have  wandered  about  the  earth  with 
pictures  of  bliss  in  their  imagination  and  with  hearts  that 
shrunk  sensitively  from  the  idea  of  pain  and  woe,  yet  have 
studied  all  varieties  of  misery  that  human  nature  can  en 
dure.  The  prison,  the  insane  asylum,  the  squalid  chamber 
of  the  almshouse,  the  manufactory  where  the  demon  of 
machinery  annihilates  the  human  soul  and  the  cotton-field 
where  God's  image  becomes  a  beast  of  burden — to  these 
and  every  other  scene  where  man  wrongs  or  neglects  his 
brother  the  apostles  of  humanity  have  penetrated.  This 
missionary  black  with  India's  burning  sunshine  shall  give 
his  arm  to  a  pale-faced  brother  who  had  made  himself 
familiar  with  the  infected  alleys  and  loathsome  haunts  of 
vice  in  one  of  our  own  cities.  The  generous  founder  of  a 
college  shall  be  the  partner  of  a  maiden  lady  of  narrow 
substance,  one  of  whose  good  deeds  it  has  beerTto  gather  a 
little  school  of  orphan  children.  If  the  mighty  merchant 
whose  benefactions  are  reckoned  by  thousands  of  dollars 
deem  himself  worthy,  let  him  join  the  procession  with  her 
whose  love  has  proved  itself  by  watchings  at  the  sick-bed 
and  all  those  lowly  offices  which  bring  her  into  actual  con- 


174  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

tact  with  disease  and  wretchedness.  And  with  those 
whose  impulses  have  guided  them  to  benevolent  actions  we 
will  rank  others  to  whom  Providence  has  assigned  a  differ 
ent  tendency  and  different  powers.  Men  who  have  spent 
their  lives  in  generous  and  holy  contemplation  for  the  hu 
man  race,  those  who  by  a  certain  heavenliness  of  spirit 
have  purified  the  atmosphere  around  them  and  thus  sup 
plied  a  medium  in  which  good  and  high  things  may  be 
projected  and  performed — give  to  these  a  lofty  place 
among  the  benefactors  of  mankind,,  although  no  deed  such 
as  the  world  calls  deeds  may  be  rendered  of  them.  There 
are  some  individuals  of  whom  we  cannot  conceive  it  proper 
that  they  should  apply  their  hands  to  any  earthly  instru 
ment  or  work  out  any  definite  act,  and  others — perhaps 
not  less  high — to  whom  it  is  an  essential  attitude  to  labor 
in  body  as  well  as  spirit  for  the  welfare  of  their  brethren. 
Thus.,  if  we  find  a  spiritual  sage  whose  unseen  inestimable 
influence  has  exalted  the  moral  standard  of  mankind,  we 
will  choose  for  his  companion  some  poor  laborer  who  has 
wrought  for  love  in  the  potato-field  of  a  neighbor  poorer 
than  himself. 

We  have  summoned  this  various  multitude — and,  to  the 
credit  of  our  nature,  it  is  a  large  one — on  the  principle  of 
Love.  It  is  singular,  nevertheless,  to  remark  the  shyness 
that  exists  among  many  members  of  the  present  class,  all 
of  whom  we  might  expect  to  recognize  one  another  by  the 
free  masonary  of  mutual  goodness  and  to  embrace  like 
brethren,  giving  God  thanks  for  such  various  specimens  of 
human  excellence.  But  it  is  far  otherwise.  Each  sect 
surrounds  its  own  righteousness  with  a  hedge  of  thorns. 
It  is  difficult  for  the  good  Christian  to  acknowledge  the 
good  pagan,  almost  impossible  for  the  good  orthodox  to 
grasp  the  hand  of  the  good  Unitarian,  leaving  to  their 
Creator  to  settle  the  matters  in  dispute  and  giving  their 
mutual  efforts  strongly  and  trustingly  to  whatever  right 
thing  is  too  evident  to  be  mistaken.  Then,  again,  though 
the  heart  be  large  yet  the  mind  is  often  of  such  moderate 
dimensions  as  to  be  exclusively  filled  up  with  one  idea. 
When  a  good  man  has  long  devoted  himself  to  a  particular 
kind  of  beneficence,  to  one  species  of  reform,  he  is  apt  to 
become  narrowed  into  the  limits  of  the  path  wherein  he 
treads  and  to  fancy  that  there  is  no  good  to  be  done  on 
earth  but  that  selfsame  good  to  which  he  has  put  his  hand 


THE  PROCESSION  OF  LIFE.  175 

and  in  the  very  mode  that  best  suits  his  own  conceptions. 
All  else  is  worthless;  his  schemes  must  be  wrought  out  by 
the  united  strength  of  the  whole  world's  stock  of  love,  or 
the  world  is  no  longer  worthy  of  a  position  in  the  universe. 
Moreover,  powerful  truth  being  the  rich  grape-juice  ex 
pressed  from  the  vineyard  of  the  ages  has  an  intoxicating 
quality  when  imbibed  by  any  save  a  powerful  intellect,  and 
often,  as  it  were,  impels  the  quaffer  to  quarrel  in  his  cups. 
For  such  reasons,  strange  to  say,  it  is  harder  to  contrive  a 
friendly  arrangement  of  these  brethren  of  love  and  right 
eousness  in  the  procession  of  life  than  to  unite  even  the 
wicked,  who,  indeed,  are  chained  together  by  their  crimes. 
The  fact  is  too  preposterous  for  tears,  too  lugubrious  for 
laughter. 

But.  let  good  men  push  and  elbow  one  another  as  they 
may  during  their  earthly  march,  all  will  be  peace  among 
them  when  the  honorable  array  of  their  procession  shall 
tread  on  heavenly  ground.  There  they  will  doubtless  find 
that  they  have  been  working  each  for  the  other's  cause,  and 
that  every  well-delivered  stroke  which  with  an  honest  pur 
pose  any  mortal  struck,  even  for  a  narrow  object,  was  in 
deed  stricken  for  the  universal  cause  of  good.  Their  own 
view  may  be  bounded  by  country,  creed,  profession,  the 
diversities  of  individual  character,  but  above  them  all  is 
the  breadth  of  Providence.  How  many  who  have  deemed 
themselves  antagonists  will  smile  hereafter  when  they  look 
back  upon  the  world's  wide  harvest-field  and  perceive  that 
in  unconscious  brotherhood  they  were  helping  to  bind  the 
self-same  sheaf! 

But  come!  The  sun  is  hastening  westward  while  the 
march  of  human  life,  that  never  paused  before,  is  delayed 
by  our  attempt  to  rearrange  its  order.  It  is  desirable  to 
find  some  comprehensive  principle  that  shall  render  our 
task  easier  by  bringing  thousands  into  the  ranks  where 
hitherto  we  have  brought  one.  Therefore  let  the  trumpet, 
if  possible,  split  its  brazen  throat  with  a  louder  note  than 
ever,  and  the  herald  summon  all  mortals  who,  from  what 
ever  cause,  have  lost,  or  never  found,  their  proper  places  in 
the  world. 

Obedient  to  this  call,  a  great  multitude  come  together, 
most  of  them  with  a  listless  gait  betokening  weariness  of 
soul,  yet  with  a  gleam  of  satisfaction  in  their  faces  at  a 
prospect  of  at  length  reaching  those  positions  which  hith- 


176  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

erto  they  have  vainly  sought.  But  here  will  be  another 
disappointment,  for  we  can  attempt  no  more  than  merely 
to  associate  in  one  fraternity  all  who  are  afflicted  with  this 
same  vague  trouble.  Some  great  mistake  in  life  is  the 
chief  condition  of  admittance  into  this  class.  Here  are 
members  of  the  learned  professions  whom  Providence  en 
dowed  with  special  gifts  for  the  plow,  the  forge  and  the 
wheelbarrow,  or  for  the  routine  of  unintellectual  business. 
We  will  assign  them  as  partners  in  the  march  those  lowly 
laborers  and  handicraftsmen  who  have  pined  as  with  a  dy 
ing  thirst  after  the  unattainable  fountains  of  knowledge. 
The  latter  have  lost  less  than  their  companions,  yet  more, 
because  they  deem  it  infinite.  Perchance  the  two  species 
of  unfortunates  may  comfort  one  another.  Here  are  Quak 
ers  with  the  instinct  of  battle  in  them,  and  men  of  war 
who  should  have  wore  the  broad  brim.  Authors  shall  be 
ranked  here  whom  some  freak  of  nature,  making  game  of 
her  poor  children,  had  imbued  with  the  confidence  of  genius 
and  strong  desire  for  fame,  but  has  favored  with  no  corre 
sponding  power,  and  others  whose  lofty  gifts  were  unac 
companied  with  the  faculty  of  expression,  or  any  of  that 
earthly  machinery  by  which  ethereal  endowments  must  be 
manifested  to  mankind.  All  these,  therefore,  are  melan 
choly  laughing-stocks.  Next,  here  are  honest  and  well- 
intentioned  persons  who  by  a  want  of  tact,  by  inaccurate 
perceptions,  by  a  distorting  imagination,  have  been  kept 
continually  at  cross-purposes  with  the  world  and  bewildered 
upon  the  path  of  life.  Let  us  see  if  they  can  confine  them 
selves  within  the  line  of  our  procession.  In  this  class, 
likewise,  we  must  assign  places  to  those  who  have  encoun 
tered  that  worst  of  ill-successes  a  higher  fortune  than  their 
abilities  could  vindicate — writers,  actors,  painters,  the  pets 
of  a  day,  but  whose  laurels  wither  unrenewed  amid  their 
hoary  hair,  politicians  whom  some  malicious  contingency 
of  affairs  has  thrust  into  conspicuous  station  where,  while 
the  world  stands  gazing  at  them,  the  dreary  consciousness 
of  imbecility  makes  them  curse  their  birth-hour.  To  such 
men  we  give  for  a  companion  him  whose  rare  talents, 
which  perhaps  require  a  revolution  for  their  exercise,  are 
buried  in  the  tomb  of  sluggish  circumstances. 

Not  far  from  these  we  must  find  room  for  one  whose  suc 
cess  has  been  of  the  wrong  kind — the  man  who  should  have 
lingered  in  the  cloisters  of  a  university  digging  new  treas- 


THE  PROCESSION  OF  LIFE.  177 

ures  out  of  the  Herculaneum  of  antique  lore,  diffusing 
depth  and  accuracy  of  literature  throughout  his  country, 
and  thus  making  for  himself  a  great  and  quiet  fame.  But 
the  outward  tendencies  around  him  have  proved  too  power 
ful  for  his  inward  nature,  and  have  drawn  him  into  the 
arena  of  political  tumult,  there  to  contend  at  disadvantage, 
whether  front  to  front  or  side  by  side,  with  the  brawny 
giants  of  actual  life.  He  becomes,  it  may  be,  a  name  for 
brawling  parties  to  bandy  to  and  fro,  a  legislator  of  the 
union,  a  governor  of  his  native  state,  an  ambassador  to 
the  courts  of  kings  or  queens,  and  the  world  may  deem 
him  a  man  of  happy  stars.  But  not  so  the  wise,  and  not 
so  himself  when  he  looks  through  his  experience  and  sighs 
to  miss  that  fitness  the  one  invaluable  touch  which  makes 
all  things  true  and  real.  80  much  achieved,  yet  how 
abortive  is  his  life!  Whom  shall  we  choose  for  his  com 
panion?  Some  weak-framed  blacksmith,  perhaps,  whose 
delicacy  of  muscle  might  have  suited  a  tailor's  shop-board 
better  than  the  anvil. 

Shall  we  bid  the  trumpet  sound  again?  It  is  hardly 
Avorth  the  while.  There  remain  a  few  idle  men  of  fortune, 
tavern  and  grog-shop  loungers,  lazzaroni,  old  bachelors, 
decaying  maidens  and  people  of  crooked  intellect  or  tem 
per,  all  of  whom  may  find  their  like,  or  some  tolerable  ap 
proach  to  it,  in  the  plentiful  diversity  of  our  latter  class. 
There,  too,  as  his  ultimate  destiny,  must  we  rank  the 
dreamer  who.  ail  his  life  long,  has  cherished  the  idea  that 
lie  was  peculiarly  apt  for  something,  but  never  could  deter 
mine  what  it  was.  and  there  the  most  unfortunate  of  men, 
whose  purpose  it  has  been  to  enjoy  life's  pleasures,  but  to 
avoid  a  manful  struggle  with  its  toil  and  sorrow.  The  re 
mainder,  if  any,  may  connect  themselves  with  whatever 
rank  of  the  procession  they  shall  find  best  adapted  to  their 
tastes  and  consciences.  The  worst  possible  fate  would  be 
to  remain  behind  shivering  in  the  solitude  of  time  while  all 
the  world  is  on  the  move  toward  eternity. 

Our  attempt  to  classify  society  is  now  complete.  The 
result  may  be  anything  but  perfect,  yet  better — to  give  it 
the  very  lowest  phrase — than  the  antique  rule  of  the  her 
ald's  office  or  the  modern  one  of  the  tax-gatherer,  whereby 
the  accidents  and  superficial  attributes  with  which  the  real 
nature  of  individuals  has  least  to  do  are  acted  upon  as  the 
deepest  characteristics  of  mankind.  Our  task  is  done! 
Mow  let  the  grand  procession  wove! 


178  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

Yet  pause  awhile:  we  had  forgotten  the  chief  marshal. 

Hark!  That  world-wide  swell  of  solemn  music  with  the 
clang  of  a  mighty  bell  breaking  forth  through  its  regulated 
uproar  announces  its  approach.  He  comes,  a  severe,  se 
date,  immovable,  dark  rider,  waving  his  truncheon  of  uni 
versal  sway  as  he  passes  along  the  lengthened  line  on  the 
pale  horse  of  the  Kevelations.  It  is  Death.  Who  else 
could  assume  the  guidance  of  a  procession  that  compre 
hend  all  humanity?  And  if  some  among  these  many  mill 
ions  should  deem  themselves  classed  amiss,  yet  let  them 
take  to  their  hearts  the  comfortable  truth  that  Death  levels 
us  all  into  one  great  brotherhood,  and  that  another  state  as 
being  will  surely  rectify  the  wrong  of  this.  Then  breathe 
thy  will  upon  the  earth's  wailing  wind,  thou  band  of  mel 
ancholy  music  made  up  of  every  sigh  that  the  human 
heart  unsatisfied  has  uttered!  There  is  yet  triumph  in  thy 
tones. 

And  now  we  move,  beggars  in  their  rags  and  king's  trail 
ing  the  regal  purple  in  the  dust,  the  warrior's  gleaming 
helmet,  the  priest  in  his  sable  robe,  the  hoary  grandsire 
who  has  run  life's  circle  and  come  back  to  childhood,  the 
ruddy  schoolboy  with  his  golden  curls  frisking  along  the 
march,  the  artisan's  stuff  jacket,  the  noble's  star-decorated 
coat,  the  whole  presenting  a  motley  spectacle,  yet  with  a 
dusky  grandeur  brooding  over  it.  Onward,  onward,  into 
that  dimness  where  the  lights  of  time  which  have  blazed 
along  the  procession  are  nickering  in  their  sockets!  And 
whither?  We  know  not,  and  Death,  hitherto  our  leader, 
deserts  us  by  the  wayside  as  the  tramp  of  our  innumerable 
footsteps  passes  beyond  his  sphere.  He  knows  not  more 
than  we  our  destined  goal,  hut  God,  who  made  us,  knows, 
and  will  not  leave  us  on  our  toilsome  and  doubtful  march, 
either  to  wander  in  infinite  uncertainty  or  perish  by  the 
way. 


FEATHERTOP.  179 


FEATHERTOP. 

A   M01ULIZEI)    LEGEND. 


"  DICKON,"  cried  Mother  Kigby,  "  a  coal  for  my  pipe!" 

The  pipe  was  in  the  old  dame's  mouth  when  she  said 
these  words.  She  had  thrust  it  there  after  tilling  it  with 
tobacco,  but  without  stooping  to  light  it  at  the  hearth — 
where,  indeed,  there  was  no  appearance  of  a  lire  having 
been  kindled  that  morning.  Forthwith,  however,  as  soon 
as  the  order  was  given,  there  was  an  intense  red  glow  out 
of  the  bowl  of  the  pipe  and  a  whitl'  of  smoke  from  Mother 
Ixigby's  lips.  Whence  the  coal  came  and  how  brought 
hither  by  an  invisible  hand  1  have  never  been  able  to  dis 
cover. 

"Good!"  (ninth  Mother  liigby,  with  a  nod  of  her  head. 
"Thank  ye,  Dickon!  And  now  for  imiking  this  scare 
crow.  Be  within  call,  Dickon,  in  case  I  need  you  again." 

The  good  woman  had  risen  thus  early  (for  as  yet  it  was 
scarcely  sunrise)  in  order  to  set  about  making  a  scarecrow, 
which  she  intended  to  put  in  the  middle  of  her  corn-patch. 
Jt  was  now  the  latter  week  of  May,  and  the  crows  and 
blackbirds  had  already  discovered  the  little  green,  rolled  - 
up  leaf  of  the  Indian  corn  just  peeping  out  of  the  soil. 
She  was  determined,  therefore,  to  contrive  as  lifelike  a 
scarecrow  as  ever  was  seen,  and  to  finish  it  immediately, 
from  top  to  toe,  so  that  it  should  begin  it  sentinel's  duty 
that  very  morning.  Now,  Mother  liigby  (as  everybody 
must  have  heard)  was  one  of  the  most  cunning  and  potent 
witches  in  New  England,  and  might  with  very  little  trouble 
have  made  a  scarecrow  ugly  enough  to  frighten  the  minis 
ter  himself.  But  on  this  occasion,  as  she  had  awakened  in 
an  uncommonly  pleasant  hnmor  and  was  further  dulcified 
by  her  pipe  of  tobacco,  she  resolved  to  produce  something 


180  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

fine,  beautiful  and  splendid  rather  than  hideous  and  hor 
rible. 

"  I  don't  want  to  set  up  a  hobgoblin  in  my  own  corn- 
patch,  and  almost  at  my  own  doorstep,"  said  Mother  Rigby 
to  herself,  puffing  out  a  whiff  of  smoke.  "  I  could  do  it 
if  I  pleased,  but  I'm  tired  of  doing  marvelous  things,  and  so 
I'll  keep  within  the  bounds  of  every-day  business  just  for 
variety's  sake.  Besides,  there  is  no  use  in  scaring  the  little 
children  for  a  mile  roundabout,  though  'tis  true  I'm  a 
witch."  It  was  settled,  therefore  in  her  own  mind,  that 
the  scarecrow  should  represent  a  fine  gentleman  of  the 
period,  so  far  as  the  materials  at  hand  would  allow. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  as  well  to  enumerate  the  chief  of  the 
articles  that  went  to  the  composition  of  this  figure.  The 
most  important  item  of  all,  probably,  although  it  made  so 
little  show,  was  a  certain  broomstick  on  which  Mother 
Ixigby  had  taken  many  an  airy  gallop  at  midnight,  and 
which  now  served  the  scarecrow  by  way  of  a  spinal  column 
— or,  as  the  unlearned  phrase  it,  a  backbone.  One  of  its 
arms  was  a  disabled  flail  which  used  to  be  wielded  by  Good 
man  Rigby  before  his  spouse  worried  him  out  of  this  trou 
blesome  world;  the  other,  if  I  mistake  not,  was  composed 
of  a  puddling-stick  and  a  broken  rung  of  a  chair,  tied 
loosely  together  at  the  elbow.  As  for  its  legs,  the  right 
was  a  hoe-handle,  and  the  left  an  undistinguished  and 
miscellaneous  stick  from  the  wood-pile.  Its  lung,  stomach, 
and  other  affairs  of  that  kind,  were  nothing  better  than  a 
meal-bag  stuffed  with  straw.  Thus  we  have  made  out  the 
skeleton  and  entire  corporosity  of  the  scarecrow;  with  the 
exception  of  its  head,  and  this  was  admirably  supplied  by  a 
somewhat  withered  and  shriveled  pumpkin,  in  which 
Mother  Rigby  cut  two  holes  for  the  eyes  and  a  slit  for  the 
mouth,  leaving  a  bluish-colored  knob  in  the  middle  to  pass 
for  a  nose.  It  was  really  quite  a  respectable  face. 

"  I've  seen  worse  ones  on  human  shoulders,  at  any  rate," 
said  Mother  Rigby.  "  And  many  a  fine  gentleman  has  a 
pumpkin  head,  as  well  as  my  scarecrow." 

But  the  clothes  in  this  case  were  to  be  the  making  of  the 
man;  so  the  good  old  woman  took  down  from  a  peg  an  an 
cient  plum-colored  coat  of  London  made  and  with  relics  of 
embroidery  on  its  seams,  cuffs,  pocket-flaps  and  button 
holes,  but  lamentably  worn  and  faded,  patched  at  the 
elbows,  tattered  at  the  skirts,  aud  threadbare  all  over.  On 


FEATHERTOP.  181 

the  left  breast  was  a  round  hole  whence  either  a  star  of 
nobility  had  been  rent  away  or  else  the  hot  heart  of  some 
former  wearer  had  scorched  it  through  and  through.  The 
iieighors  said  that  this  rich  garment  belonged  to  the  Black 
Man's  wardrobe,  and  that  he  kept  it  at  Mother  Rigby's 
cottage  for  the  convenience  of  slipping  it  on  whenever  he 
wished  to  make  a  grand  appearance  at  the  governor's  table. 
To  match  the  coat  there  was  a  velvet  waistcoat  of  very 
ample  size,  and  formerly  embroidered  with  foliage  that  had 
been  so  brightly  golden  as  the  maple-leaves  in  October,  but 
which  had  now  quite  vanished  out  of  the  substance  of  the 
velvet.  Xext  came  a  pair  of  scarlet  breeches  once  worn  by 
the  French  governor  of  Louisbourg,  and  the  knees  of 
which  had  touched  the  lower  step  of  the  throne  of  Louis 
le  Grand.  The  Frenchman  had  given  these  small  clothes 
to  an  Indian  pow-wow,  who  parted  with  them  to  the  old 
witch  for  a  gill  of  strong  waters  at  one  of  their  dances  in 
the  forest.  Furthermore,  Mother  Kigby  produced  a  pair 
of  silk  stockings  and  put  them  on  the  figure's  leg,  where 
they  showed  as  unsubstantial  as  a  dream,  with  the  wooden 
reality  of  the  two  sticks  making  itself  miserably  apparent 
through  the  holes.  Lastly,  she  put  her  dead  husband's 
wig  on  the  bare  scalp  of  the  pumpkin,  and  surmounted 
the  whole  with  a  dusty  three-cornered  hat,  in  which  was 
stuck  the  longest  tail-feather  of  a  rooster. 

Then  the  old  dame  stood  the  figure  up  in  a  corner  of  her 
cottage  and  chuckled  to  behold  its  yellow  semblance  of  a 
visage,  with  its  nobby  little  nose  thrust  into  the  air.  It 
had  a  strangely  self-satistied  aspect,  and  seemed  to  say, 
"  Come,  look  at  me!" 

"  And  you  are  well  worth  looking  at,  that's  a  fact!" 
quoth  Mother  Higby,  in  admiration  at  her  own  handiwork. 
••  I've  made  many  a  puppet  since  I've  been  a  witch,  but  me- 
thinks  this  is  the  finest  of  them  all.  'Tis  almost  too  good 
for  a  scarecrow.  And,  by  the  bye,  I'll  just  fill  a  fresh  pipe 
of  tobacco,  and  then  take  him  out  to  the  corn-patch." 

While  filling  her  pipe  the  old  woman  continued  to  gaze 
with  almost  motherly  affection  at  the  figure  in  the  corner. 
To  say  the  truth,  whether  it  were  chance  or  skill  or  down 
right  witchcraft,  there  was  something  wonderfully  human 
in  this  ridiculous  shape  bedizened  with  its  tattered  finery, 
and,  as  for  the  countenance,  it  appeared  to  shrivel  its 
yellow  surface  into  a  grin — a  funny  kind  of  expression  be- 


182  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

tween  scorn  and  merriment,  as  if  it  understood  itself  to  be 
a  jest  at  mankind.  The  more  Mother  Rigby  looked,  the 
better  she  was  pleased. 

"Dickon,"  cried  she,  sharply,  "another  coal  for  my 
pipe!" 

Hardly  had  she  spoken  than,  just  as  before,  there  was  a 
red-glowing  coal  on  the  top  of  the  tobacco.  She  drew  in  a 
long  whiff,  and  puffed  it  forth  again  into  the  bar  of  morn 
ing  sunshine  which  struggled  through  the  one  dusty  pane 
of  her  cottage  window.  Mother  Kigby  always  liked  to 
flavor  her  pipe  with  a  coal  of  fire  from  the  particular 
chimney-corner  whence  this  had  been  brought.  But  where 
that  chimney-corner  might  be  or  who  brought  the  coal 
from  it — further  than  that  the  invisible  messenger  seemed 
to  respond  to  the  name  of  Dickon — I  cannot  tell. 

"  That  puppet  yonder,"  thought  Mother  Rigby,  still 
with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  scarecrow,  "is  too  good  apiece 
of  work  to  stand  all  summer  in  a  corn-patch  frightening 
away  the  crows  and  blackbirds.  He's  capable  of  better 
things.  Why,  I've  danced  with  a  worse  one  when  partners 
happened  to  be  scarce  at  our  witch-meetings  in  the  forest! 
What  if  I  should  let  him  take  his  chance  among  the  other 
men  of  straw  and  empty  fellows  who  go  bustling  about  the 
world  ?" 

The  old  witch  took  three  or  four  more  whiffs  of  her  pipe 
and  smiled. 

"  He'll  meet  plenty  of  his  brethren  at  every  street-cor 
ner,"  continued  she.  "  Well,  I  didn't  mean  to  dabble  in 
witchcraft  to-day  further  than  the  lighting  of  my  pipe,  but 
a  witch  I  am,  and  a  witch  Fm  likely  to  be,  and  there's  no 
use  trying  to  shirk  it.  I'll  make  a  man  of  my  scarecrow, 
were  it  only  for  the  joke's  sake." 

While  muttering  these  words  Mother  Eigby  took  the  pipe 
from  her  own  mouth  and  thrust  it  into  the  crevice  which 
represented  the  same  feature  in  the  pumpkin  visage  of  the 
scarecrow. 

"Puff,  darling,  puff  I"  said  she.  "Puff  away,  my  fine 
fellow  !  Your  life  depends  upon  it  !" 

This  was  a  strange  exhortation,  undoubtedly,  to  be  ad 
dressed  to  a  mere  thing  of  sticks,  straw  and  old  clothes, 
with  nothing  better  than  a  shrivelled  pumpkin  for  a  head, 
as  we  know  to  have  been  the  scarecrow's  case.  Neverthe 
less,  as  we  must  carefully  hold  in  remembrance,  Mother 


FEATHERTOP.  183 

Rigby  was  a  witch  of  singular  power  and  dexterity  ;  and, 
keeping  this  fact  duly  before  our  minds,  we  shall  see  noth 
ing  beyond  credibility  in  the  remarkable  incidents  of  our 
story.  "  Indeed,  the  great  difficulty  will  be  at  once  got  over 
if  we  can  only  bring  ourselves  to  believe  that  as  soon  as  the 
old  dame  bade  him  puff  there  came  a  whiff  of  smoke  from 
the  scarecrow's  mouth.  It  was  the  very  feeblest  of  whiffs, 
to  be  sure,  but  it  was  followed  by  another  and  another, 
each  more  decided  than  the  preceding  one. 

"  Puff  away,  my  pet  !  Puff  away,  my  pretty  one  I" 
Mother  Rigby  kept  repeating,  with  her  pleasantest  smile. 
"  It  is  the  breath  of  life  to  ye,  and  that  you  may  take  my 
word  for  it. 

Beyond  all  question,  the  pipe  was  bewitched.  There  must 
have 'been  a  spell  either  in  the  tobacco  or  in  the  fiercely- 
glowing  coal  that  so  mysteriously  burned  on  top  of  it,  or  in 
the  pungently-aromatic  smoke  which  exhaled  from  the  kin 
dled  wood.  The  figure,  after  a  few  doubtful  attempts,  at 
length  blew  forth  a  volley  of  smoke  extending  all  the  way 
from  the  obscure  corner  into  the  bar  of  sunshine.  There 
it  eddied  and  melted  away  among  the  motes  of  dust.  It 
seemed  a  convulsive  effort,  for  the  two  or  three  next  whiffs 
were  fainter,  although  the  coal  still  glowed  and  threw  a 
glow  over  the  scarecrow's  visage.  The  old  witch  clapped 
her  skinny  hands  together  and  smiled  encouragingly  upon 
her  handiwork.  She  saw  that  the  charm  had  worked  well. 
The  shrivelled  yellow  face,  which  heretofore  had  been  no 
face  at  all,  had  already  a  thin  fantastic  haze,  as  it  were,  of 
human  likeness,  shifting  to  and  fro  across  it,  sometimes 
vanishing  entirely,  but  glowing  more  perceptible  than  ever 
with  the  next  whiff  from  the  pipe.  The  whole  figure,  in 
like  manner,  assumed  a  show  of  life  such  as  we  impart  to 
ill-defined  shapes  among  the  clouds,  and  half  deceive  our 
selves  with  the  pastime  of  our  own  fancy. 

If  we  must  needs  pry  closely  into  the  matter,  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  there  was  any  real  change,  after  all,  in 
the  sordid,  worn-out,  worthless  and  ill-jointed  substance  of 
the  scarecrow,  but  merely  a  spectral  illusion  and  a  cunning 
effect  of  light  and  shade,  so  colored  and  contrived  as  to  de 
lude  the  eyes  of  most  men.  The  miracles  of  witchcraft 
seem  always  to  have  had  a  very  shallow  subtlety,  and  at 
least,  if  the  above  explanations  do  not  hit  the  truth  of  the 
process,  I  can  suggest  no  better. 


184  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"  Well  puffed,  my  pretty  lad  !"  still  cried  old  Mother 
Rigby.  "  Come  !  another  good,  stout  whiff,  and  let  it 
be  with  might  and  main.  Puff  for  thy  life,  I  tell  thee ! 
Puff  out  of  the  very  bottom  of  thy  heart,  if  any  heart  thou 
hast,  or  any  bottom  to  it.  Well  done,  again!  Thou  didst 
suck  in  that  mouthful  as  if  for  the  pure  love  of  it." 

And  then  the  witch  beckoned  to  the  scarecrow,  throw 
ing  so  much  magnetic  potency  into  her  gesture  that  it 
seemed  as  if  it  must  inevitably  be  obeyed,  like  the  mystic 
call  of  the  loadstone  when  it  summons  the  iron. 

"Why  lurkest  thou  in  the  corner,  lazy  one?"  said  she. 
"  Step  forth!  Thou  hast  the  world  before  thee!" 

Upon  my  word,  if  the  legend  were  not  one  which  I  heard 
on  my  grandmother's  knee,  and  which  had  established  its 
place  among  things  credible  before  rny  childish  judgment 
could  analyze  its  probability,  I  question  whether  I  should 
have  the  face  to  tell  it  now. 

In  obedience  to  Mother  Rigby 'a  word,  and  extending  its 
arm  as  if  to  reach  her  outstretched  hand,  the  figure  made 
a  step  forward — a  kind  of  hitch  and  jerk,  however,  rather 
than  a  step — then  tottered,  and  almost  lost  its  balance. 
What  could  the  witch  expect?  It  was  nothing  after  all, 
but  a  scarecrow  stuck  upon  two  sticks.  But  the  strong- 
willed  old  beldam  scowled  and  beckoned,  and  flung  the 
energy  of  her  purpose  so  forcibly  at  this  poor  combination 
of  rotten  wood  and  musty  straw  and  ragged  garments  that 
it  was  compelled  to  show  itself  a  man,  in  spite  of  the  real 
ity  of  things;  so  it  stepped  into  the  bar  of  sunshine.  There 
it  stood,  poor  devil  of  a  contrivance  that  it  was,  with  only 
the  thinnest  vesture  of  human  similitude  about  it,  through 
which  was  evident  the  stiff,  rickety,  incongruous,  faded, 
tattered,  good-for-nothing  patchwork  of  its  substance, 
ready  to  sink  in  a  heap  upon  the  floor,  as  conscious  of  its 
own  unworthiness  to  be  erect.  Shall  I  confess  the  truth? 
At  its  present  point  of  vivification  the  scarecrow  reminds 
me  of  some  of  the  lukewarm  and  abortive  characters  com 
posed  of  heterogeneous  materials  used  for  the  thousandth 
time,  and  never  worth  using,  with  which  romance-writers 
(and  myself,  no  doubt,  among  the  rest)  have  so  over 
peopled  the  world  of  fiction. 

But  the  fierce  old  hag  began  to  get  angry  and  show  a 
glimpse  of  her  diabolic  nature  (like  a  snake's  head  peeping 
with  a  hiss  out  of  her  bosom)  at  this  pusillanimous  behavior 


FEA  TIIER  TOP.  185 

of  the  thing  which  she  had  taken  the  trouble  to  put  to 
gether. 

"Puff  away,  wretch!"  cried  she,  wrathfully.  "Puff, 
puff,  puff,  thou  thing  of  straw  and  emptiness!  thou.  rag  or 
two!  thou  meal-bag!  thou  pumpkin-head!  thou  nothing! 
Where  shall  I  find  a  name  vile  enough  to  call  thee  by? 
Puff,  I  say,  and  suck  in  thy  fantastic  life  along  with  the 
smoke,  else  I  snatch  the  pipe  from  thy  mouth  and  hurl 
thee  where  that  red  coal  came  from." 

Thus  threatened,  the  unhappy  scarecrow  had  nothing  for 
it  but  to  puff  away  for  dear  life.  As  need  was,  therefore, 
it  applied  itself  lustily  to  the  pipe,  and  sent  forth  such 
abundant  volleys  of  tobacco-smoke  that  the  small  cottage- 
kitchen  became  all-Vaporous.  The  one  sunbeam  struggled 
mistily  through  and  could  but  imperfectly  define  the  image 
of  the  cracked  and  dusty  window-pane  on  the  opposite 
wall. 

Mother  Rigby,  meanwhile,  with  one  brown  arm  akimbo 
and  the  other  stretched  toward  the  figure,  loomed  grimly 
amid  the  obscurity  with  such  port  and  expression  as  when 
she  was  wont  to  heave  a  ponderous  nightmare  on  her  vic 
tims  and  stand  at  the  bedside  to  enjoy  their  agony.  In 
fear  and  trembling  did  this  poor  scarecrow  puff.  But  its 
efforts,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  served  an  excellent  pur 
pose,  for  with  each  successive  whiff  the  figure  lost  more 
and  more  of  its  dizzy  and  perplexing  tenuity  and  seemed  to 
take  denser  substance.  Its  very  garments,  moreover,  par 
took  of  the  magical  change,  and  shone  with  the  gloss  of 
novelty,  and  glistened  with  the  skillfully  embroidered  gold 
that  had  long  ago  been  rent  away.  And,  half  revealed 
among  the  smoke,  a  yellow  visage  bent  its  lusterless  eyes  on 
Mother  Rigby. 

At  last  the  old  witch  clinched  her  fist  and  shook  it  at  the 
figure.  Not  that  she  was  positively  angry,  but  merely  act 
ing  on  the  principle— perhaps  untrue  or  not  the  only 
truth,  though  as  high  a  one  as  Mother  Rigby  could  be  ex 
pected  to  attain — that  feeble  and  torpid  natures,  being  in 
capable  of  better  inspiration,  must  be  stirred  up  by  fear. 
But  here  was  the  crisis.  Should  she  fail  in  what  she  now 
sought  to  effect,  or  was  her  ruthless  purpose  to  scatter  the 
miserable  simulacre  into  its  original  elements. 

"  Thou  hast  a  man's  aspect,"  said  she,  sternly;  "  have  also 
the  echo  and  mockery  of  a  voice.  And  I  bid  thee  speak!" 


186  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

The  scarecrow  gasped,  struggled,  and  at  length  emitted 
a  murmur  which  was  so  incorporated  with  its  smoky  breath 
that  you  could  scarcely  tell  whether  it  were  indeed  a  voice 
or  only  a  whiff  of  tobacco.  Some  narrators  of  this  legend 
held  the  opinion  that  Mother  Rigby's  conjurations  and  the 
fierceness  of  her  will  had  compelled  a  familiar  spirit  into 
the  figure,  and  that  the  voice  was  his. 

"Mother,"  mumbled  the  poor  stupefied  voice,  " be  not 
so  awful  with  me!  I  would  fain  speak,  but,  being  without 
wits,  what  can  I  say?" 

"Thou  canst  speak,  darling,  canst  thou?"  cried  Mother 
Rigby,  relaxing  her  grim  countenance  into  a  smile.  "And 
what  shalt  thou  say,  quotha?  Say,  indeed!  Art  thou  of 
the  brotherhood  of  the  empty  skull  and  demandest  of  me 
what  thou  shalt  say?  Thou  shalt  say  a  thousand  things, 
and,  saying  them  a  thousand  times  over,  thou  shalt  still 
have  said  nothing.  Be  not  afraid,  I  tell  thee!  When  thou 
cornest  into  the  world — whither  I  purpose  sending  thee 
forthwith — thou  shalt  not  lack  the  wherewithal  to  talk. 
Walk!  Why,  thou  shalt  babble  like  a  mill-stream,  if  thou 
wilt.  Thou  hast  brains  enough  for  that,  I  trow." 

"At  your  service,  mother,"  responded  the  figure. 

"And  that  was  well  said,  my  pretty  one!"  answered 
Mother  Rigby.  "  Then  thou  speakest  like  thyself,  and 
meant  nothing.  Thou  shalt  have  a  hundred  such  set 
phrases,  and  five  hundred  to  the  boot  of  them.  And  now, 
darling,  I  have  taken  so  much  pains  with  thee,  and  thou 
art  so  beautiful,  that,  by  my  troth,  I  love  thee  better  than 
any  witch's  puppet  in  the  world;  and  I've  made  them  of 
all  sorts — clay,  wax,  straw,  sticks,  night  fog,  morning 
mist,  sea-foam  and  chimney-smoke.  But  thou  art  the  very 
best;  so  give  heed  to  what  I  say." 

"Yes,  kind  mother,"  said  the  figure,  "with  all  my 
heart!" 

"  With  all  thy  heart!"  cried  the  old  witch,  setting  her 
hands  to  her  sides  and  laughing  loudly.  "  Thou  hast  such 
a  pretty  way  of  speaking!  With  all  thy  heart!  And  thou 
didst  put  thy  hand  to  the  left  side  of  thy  waistcoat,  as  if 
thou  really  hadst  one!" 

So,  now,  in  high  good -humor  with  this  fastastic  contri 
vance  of  hers,  Mother  Rigby  told  the  scarecrow  that  it 
must  go  and  play  its  part  in  the  great  world,  where  not 
one  man  in  a  hundred,  she  affirmed,  was  gifted  with  more 


FEATHERTOP.  187 

real  substance  than  itself.  And,,  that  he  might  hold  up 
his  head  with  the  best  of  them,  she  endowed  him  on  the 
spot  with  an  unreckonable  amount  of  wealth.  It  con 
sisted  partly  of  a  gold-mine  in  Eldorado,  and  of  10,000 
shares  in  a  broken  bubble,  and  of  500,000  acres  of  vine 
yard  at  the  North  Pole,  and  of  a  castle  in  the  air  and 
a  chateau  in  Spain,  together  with  all  the  rents  and  income 
therefrom  accruing.  She  further  made  over  to  him  the 
cargo  of  a  certain  ship  laden  with  salt  of  Cadiz  which  she 
herself  by  her  necromantic  arts  had  caused  to  fonder  ten 
years  before  in  the  deepest  part  of  mid-ocean.  If  the  salt 
were  not  dissolved  and  could  be  brought  to  market,  it 
would  fetch  a  pretty  penny  among  the  fishermen.  That 
he  might  not  lack  ready  money,  she  gave  him  a  copper 
farthing  of  Birmingham  manufacture,  being  all  the  coin 
she  had  about  her,  and  likewise  a  great  deal  of  brass, 
which  she  applied  to  his  forehead,  thus  making  it  yellower 
than  ever. 

"With  that  brass  alone/' quoth  Mother  "Rigby,  "  thou 
canst  pay  thy  way  all  over  the  earth.  Kiss  me,  pretty 
darling!  I  have  done  my  best  for  thee." 

Furthermore,  that  the  adventurer  might  lack  no  possible 
advantage  toward  a  fair  start  in  life,  this  excellent  old 
dame  gave  him  a  token  by  which  he  was  to  introduce  him 
self  to  a  certain  magistrate,  member  of  the  council,  mer 
chant  and  elder  of  the  church  (the  four  capacities  consti 
tuting  but  one  man)  who  stood  at  the  head  of  society  in 
the  neighboring  metropolis.  The  token  was  neither  more 
nor  less  than  a  single  word  which  Mother  Kigby  whispered 
to  the  scarecrow  and  which  the  scarecrow  was  to  whisper 
to  the  merchant. 

"  Gouty  as  the  old  fellow  is,  he'll  run  thy  errands  for 
theo  when  once  thou  hast  given  him  that  word  in  his  ear,'' 
said  the  old  witch.  "  Mother  Rigby  knows  the  worshipful 
Justice  Gookin  and  the  worshipful  justice  knows  Mother 
Kigby!" 

Here  the  witch  thrust  her  wrinkled  face  close  to  the 
puppet's,  chuckling  irrepressibly  and  fidgeting  all  through 
her  system  with  delight  at  the  idea  which  she  meant  to 
communicate. 

"The  worshipful  Master  Gookin/' whispered  she,  "hath 
a  comely  maiden  to  his  daughter.  And  hark  ye,  my  pet. 
Thon  hast  a  fair  outside  and  a  pretty  wit  enough  of  thine 


188  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

own.  Yea,  a  pretty  wit  enough!  Thou  wilt  think  better 
of  it  when  thou  hast  seen  more  of  other  people's  wits. 
Now,  with  thy  outside  and  thy  inside,  thou  art  the  very 
man  to  win  a  young  girl's  heart.  Never  doubt  it;  I  tell 
thee  it  shall  be  so.  Put  but  a  bold  face  on  the  matter, 
sigh,  smile,  flourish  thy  hat,  thrust  forth  thy  leg  like  a 
dancing-master,  put  thy  right  hand  to  the  left  side  of  thy 
waistcoat  and  pretty  Polly  Gookin  is  thine  own/' 

Ail  this  while  the  new  creature  had  been  sucking  in  and 
exhaling  the  vapory  fragrance  of  his  pipe  and  seemed  now 
to  continue  this  occupation  as  much  for  the  enjoyment  it 
afforded  as  because  it  was  an  essential  condition  of  his  ex 
istence.  It  was  wonderful  to  see  how  exceedingly  like  a 
human  being  it  behaved.  Its  eyes  (for  it  appeared  to  pos 
sess  a  pair)  were  bent  on  Mother  Rigby  and  at  suitable 
junctures  it  nodded  or  shook  its  head.  Neither  did  it  lack 
words  proper  for  the  occasion:  "Really!"  "Indeed!" 
"  Pray  tell  me!"  "Is  it  possible!"  "Upon  my  word!" 
"By  no  means!"  "Oh!"  "Ah!"  "Hem!"  and  other 
such  weighty  utterances  as  imply  attention,  inquiry,  ac 
quiescence  or  dissent  on  the  part  of  the  auditor.  Even  had 
you  stood  by  and  seen  the  scarecrow  made  you  could 
scarcely  have  resisted  the  conviction  that  it  perfectly  under 
stood  the  cunning  counsels  which  the  old  witch  poured 
into  its  counterfeit  of  an  ear.  The  more  earnestly  it  ap 
plied  its  lips  to  the  pipe,  the  more  distinctly  was  its 
human  likeness  stamped  among  visible  realities,  the  more 
sagacious  grew  its  expression,  the  more  lifelike  its  gestures 
and  movements  and  the  more  intelligibly  audible  its  voice. 
Its  garments,  too,  glistened  so  much  the  brighter  with  an  il 
lusory  magnificence.  The  very  pipe  in  which  burned  the 
spell  of  all  this  wonder-work  ceased  to  appear  as  a  smoke- 
blackened  earthen  stump  and  became  a  meerschaum  with 
painted  bowl  and  amber  mouthpiece. 

It  might  be  apprehended,  however,  that,  as  the  life  of 
the  illusion  seemed  identical  with  the  vapor  of  the  pipe,  it 
would  terminate  simultaneously  with  the  reduction  of  the 
tobacco  to  ashes.  But  the  beldam  foresaw  the  diffi 
culty. 

"  Hold  thou  the  pipe,  my  precious  one,"  said  she, 
"while  I  fill  it  for  thee  again." 

It  was  sorrowful  to  behold  how  the  fine  gentleman  began 
to  fade  back  into  a  scarecrow  while  Mother  Rigby  shook 


FEATHERTOP.  189 

the  ashes  out  of  the  pipe  and  proceeded  to  replenish  it 
from  her  tobacco-box. 

"  Dickon,"  cried  she,  in  her  high,  sharp  tone,  "  another 
coal  for  this  pipe." 

No  sooner  said  than  the  intensely  red  speck  of  fire  was 
glowing  within  the  pipe-bowl,  and  the  scarecrow,  without 
waiting  for  the  witch's  bidding,  applied  the  tube  to  his 
lips  and  drew  in  a  few  short,  convulsive  whiffs,  which  soon, 
however,  became  regular  and  equable. 

"  Now,  mine  own  heart's  darling,"  quote  Mother  Rigby, 
"  whatever  may  happen  to  thee,  thou  must  stick  to  thy 
pipe.  Thy  life  is  in  it;  and  that,  at  least,  thou  knowest 
well,  if  thou  knowest  naught  besides.  Stick  to  thy  pipe,  I 
say!  Smoke,  puff,  blow  thy  cloud,  and  tell  the  people,  if 
any  question  be  made,  that  it  is  for  thy  health,  and  that  so 
the  physician  orders  thee  to  do.  And,  sweet  one,  when 
thou  shalt  find  thy  pipe  getting  low,  go  apart  into  some 
corner,  and,  first  filling  thyself  with  smoke,  cry  sharply: 
•  Dickon,  a  fresh  pipe  of  tobacco!'  and  '  Dickon,  another 
coal  for  my  pipe!'  and  have  it  into  thy  pretty  mouth  as 
speedily  as  may  be,  else,  instead  of  a  gallant  gentlemen  in 
a  gold-laced  coat,  thou  wilt  be  but  a  jumble  of  sticks  and 
tattered  clothes;  and  a  bag  of  straw  and  a  withered  pump 
kin.  Now  depart,  my  treasure,  and  good  luck  go  with 
thee!" 

(S  Never  fear,  mother,"  said  the  figure,  in  a  stout  voice, 
and  sending  forth  a  courageous  whiff  of  smoke.  "  I  will 
thrive  if  an  honest  man  and  a  gentleman  may." 

"  Oh,  thou  wilt  be  the  death  of  me!"  cried  the  old  witch, 
convulsed  with  laughter.  "That  was  well  said!  If  an 
honest  man  and  a  gentleman  may!  Thou  playest  thy  part 
to  perfection.  Get  along  with  thee  for  a  smart  fellow,  and 
I  will  wager  on  thy  head,  as  a  man  of  pith  and  substance, 
with  a  brain  and  what  they  call  a  heart,  and  all  else  that  a 
man  should  have,  against  any  other  thing  on  two  legs.  I 
hold  myself  a  better  witch  than  yesterday  for  thy  sake. 
Did  I  not  make  thee?  And  I  defy  any  witch  in  New 
England  to  make  such  another!  Here!  take  my  staff  along 
with  thee." 

The  staff,  though  it  was  but  a  plain  oaken  stick,  imme 
diately  took  the  aspect  of  a  gold-headed  cane. 

"  That  gold  head  has  as  much  sense  in  it  as  thine  own," 
said  Mother  Rigby,  "  and  it  will  guide  thee  straight  to 


190  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

worshipful  Master  Gookin's  door.  Get  tliee  gone,  my 
pretty  pet,  my  darling,  my  precious  one,  my  treasure;  and 
if  any  ask  thy  name,  it  is  '  Feathertop,"  for  thou  hast  a 
feather  in  thy  hat  and  I  have  thrust  a  handful  of  feathers 
into  the  hollow  of  thy  head.  And  thy  wig,  too,  is  of  the 
fashion  they  call  '  feathertop;'  so  be  '  Feathertop  '  thy 
name/' 

And,  issuing  from  the  cottage,  Feathertop  strode  man 
fully  toward  town.  "Mother  Rigby  stood  at  the  threshold, 
well  pleased  to  see  how  the  sunbeams  glistened  on  him,  as 
if  all  his  magnificence  were  real,  and  how  diligently  and 
lovingly  he  smoked  his  pipe  and  how  handsomely  he 
walked,  in  spite  of  a  little  stiffness  of  his  legs.  She  watched 
him  until  out  of  sight,  and  threw  a  witch-benediction  after 
her  darling  when  a  turn  of  the  road  snatched  him  from  her 
view. 

Betimes  in  the  forenoon,  when  the  principal  street  of 
the  neighboring  town  was  just  at  its  acme  of  life  and 
bustle,  a  stranger  of  very  distinguished  figure  was  seen 
on  the  sidewalk.  His  port  as  well  as  his  garments  be 
tokened  nothing  short  of  nobility.  He  wore  a  richly- 
embroidered,  plum-colored  coat,  a  waistcoat  of  costly  vel 
vet  magnificently  adorned  with  golden  foliage,  a  pair  of 
splendid  scarlet  breeches  and  the  finest  and  glossiest  of 
white  silk  stockings.  His  head  was  covered  with  a  peruque 
so  daintily  powdered  and  adjusted  that  it  would  have  been 
sacrilege  to  disorder  it  with  a  hat,  which,  therefore  (and  it 
was  a  gold-laced  hat,  set  off  with  a  snowy  feather),  he  car 
ried  beneath  his  arm.  On  the  breast  of  his  coat  glistened 
a  star.  He  managed  his  gold-headed  cane  with  an  airy 
grace  peculiar  to  the  fine  gentleman  of  the  period,  and,  to 
give  the  highest  possible  finish  to  his  equipment,  he  had 
lace  ruffles  at  his  wrist  of  a  most  ethereal  delicacy,  suffi 
ciently  avouching  how  idle  and  aristocratic  must  be  the 
hands  which  they  half  concealed.  »• 

It  was  a  remarkable  point  in  the  accouterment  of  this 
brilliant  personage  that  he  held  in  his  left  hand  a  fantastic 
kind  of  a  pipe  with  an  exquisitely-painted  bowl  and  an 
amber  mouthpiece.  This  he  applied  to  his  lips  as  often  as 
every  five  or  six  paces,  and  inhaled  a  deep  whiff  of  smoke, 
which  after  being  retained  a  moment  in  his  lungs  might  be 
seen  to  eddy  gracefully  from  his  mouth  and  nostrils. 

As  may  well  be  supposed,  the  street  was  all  astir  to  find 
out  the  stranger's  name. 


FEATHERTOP.  191 

' '  It  is  some  great  nobleman,  beyond  question/'  said  one 
of  the  townspeople.  "  Do  you  see  the  star  at  his  breast  ?" 

"  Nay,  it  is  too  bright  to  be  seen/'  said  another.  "  Yes, 
he  must  needs  be  a  nobleman,  as  you  say.  But  by  what 
conveyance,  think  you,  can  his  lordship  have  voyaged  or 
traveled  hither  !  There  has  been  no  vessel  from  the  old 
country  for  a  month  past;  and  if  he  have  arrived  overland 
from  the  southward,  pray  where  are  his  attendants  and 
equipage  ? " 

"  He  needs  no  equipage  to  set  off  his  rank,"  remarked  a 
a  third.  "  If  he  came  among  us  in  rags,  nobility  would 
shine  through  a  hole  in  his  elbow.  I  never  saw  such  dig 
nity  of  aspect.  He  has  the  old  Norman  blood  in  his  veins, 
I  warrant  him." 

"  I  rather  take  him  to  be  a  Dutchman  or  one  of  your 
High  Germans,"  said  another  citizen.  "  The  men  of  those 
counties  have  always  the  pipe  at  their  mouths." 

"And  so  has  a  Turk,"  answered  his  companion.  "  But, 
in  my  judgment,  this  stranger  hath  been  bred  at  the  French 
court,  and  hath  there  learned  politeness  and  grace  of  man 
ner,  which  none  understand  so  well  as  the  nobility  of 
France.  That  gait,  now  !  A  vulgar  spectator  might  deem 
it  stiff — he  might  call  it  a  hitch  and  jerk — but,  to  my  eye, 
it  hath  an  unspeakable  majesty,  and  must  have  been  ac 
quired  by  constant  observation  of  the  deportment  of  the 
grand  monarch.  The  stranger's  character  and  office  are 
evident  enough.  He  is  a  French  ambassador  come  to  treat 
with  our  rulers  about  the  cession  of  Canada." 

"  More  probably  a  Spaniard,"  said  another,  "and  hence 
his  yellow  complexion.  Or,  most  likely,  he  is  from  Ha 
vana  or  from  some  port  on  the  Spanish  main,  and  comes 
to  tmike  investigation  about  the  piracies  which  our  governor 
is  thought  to  connive  ik.  Those  settlers  in  Peru  and 
Mexico Tiave  skins  as  yellow  as  the  gold  which  they  dig  out 
of  their  mines./ 

"  Yellow  or  not,"  cried  a  lady,  "he  is  a  beautiful  man  ! 
So  tall,  so  slender  !  Such  a  fine,  noble  face,  with  so  well 
shaped  a  nose  and  all  that  delicacy  of  expression  about  the 
mouth  !  And,  bless  me  !  how  bright  his  star  is  !  It  posi 
tively  shoots  out  flames." 

"  So  do  your  eyes,  fair  lady,"  said  the  stranger,  with  a 
bow  and  a  nourish  of  his  pipe,  for  he  was  just  passing  at 
the  instant.  "  Upon  my  honor,  they  have  quite  dazzled 
me  ! " 


192  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"  Was  ever  so  original  and  exquisite  a  compliment  ?  " 
murmured  the  lady,  in  an  ecstasy  of  delight. 

Amid  the  general  admiration  excited  by  the  stranger's 
appearance  there  were  only  two  dissenting  voices.  One  was 
that  of  an  impertinent  cur  which,  after  snuffing  at  the  heels 
of  the  glistening  figure,  put  its  tail  between  its  legs  and 
skulked  into  its  master's  back  yard,  vociferating  an  ex 
ecrable  howl.  The  other  dissentient  was  a  young  child  who 
squalled  at  the  fullest  stretch  of  his  lungs  and  babbled  some 
unintelligible  nonsense  about  a  pumpkin. 

Feathertop,  meanwhile,  pursued  his  way  along  the  street. 
Except  for  the  few  complimentary  words  to  the  lady,  and 
now  and  then  a  slight  inclination  of  the  head  in  requital  of 
the  profound  reverences  of  the  bystanders,  he  seemed  wholly 
absorbed  in  his  pipe.  There  needed  no  other  proof  of  his 
rank  and  consequence  than  the  perfect  equanimity  with 
which  he  comported  himself  while  the  curiosity  and  ad 
miration  of  the  town  swelled  almost  into  clamor  around 
him.  With  a  crowd  gathering  behind  his  footsteps,  he 
finally  reached  the  mansion-house  of  the  worshipful  Justice 
Gookin,  entered  the  gate,  ascended  the  steps  of  the  front 
door  and  knocked.  In  the  interim,  before  his  summons 
was  answered,  the  stranger  was  observed  to  shake  the  ashes 
out  of  his  pipe. 

"What  did  he  say  in  that  sharp  voice?"  inquired  one  of 
the  spectators. 

"Nay,  I  know  not,"  answered  his  friend.  "  But  the 
sun  dazzles  my  eyes  strangely.  How  dim  and  faded  his 
lordship  looks  all  of  a  sudden!  Bless  my  wits,  what  is 
the  matter  with  me?" 

"  The  wonder  is,"  said  the  other,  "  that  his  pipe,  which 
was  out  only  an  instant  ago,  should  be  all  alight  again  and 
with  the  reddest  coal  I  ever  saw.  There  is  something  mys 
terious  about  this  stranger.  What  a  whiff  of  smoke  was 
that!  'Dim  and  faded/  did  you  call  him?  Why,  as  he 
turns  about  the  star  on  his  breast  is  all  ablaze." 

"It  is,  indeed,"  said  his  companion,  "and  it  will  go 
near  to  dazzle  pretty  Polly  Gookin,  whom  I  see  peeping  at 
it  out  of  the  chamber  window." 

The  door  being  now  opened,  Feathertop  turned  to  the 
crowd,  made  a  stately  bend  of  his  body,  like  a  great  man 
acknowledging  the  reverence  of  the  meaner  sort,  and  van 
ished  into  the  house.  There  was  a  mysterious  kind  of  a 


FEAT1IERTOP.  193 

smile — if  it  might  not  better  be  culled  a  grin  or  grimace — 
upon  his  visage,  but,  of  all  the  throng  that  beheld  him,  not 
an  individual  appears  to  have  possessed  insight  enough  to 
detect  the  illusive  character  of  the  stranger,  except  a  little 
child  and  a  cur-dog. 

Our  legend  here  loses  somewhat  of  its  continuity,  and, 
passing  over  the  preliminary  explanation  between  Feather- 
top  and  the  merchant,  goes  in  quest  of  the  pretty  Polly 
Gookin.  She  was  a  damsel  of  a  soft,  round  figure,  with 
light  hair  and  blue  eyes  and  a  fair  rosy  face  which  seemed 
neither  very  shrewd  nor  very  simple.  This  young  lady  had 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  glistening  stranger  while  standing 
at  the  threshold,  and  had  forthwith  put  on  a  laced  cap,  a 
string  of  beads,  her  finest  kerchief  and  her  stiffest  damask 
petticoat,  in  preparation  for  the  interview.  Hurrying  from 
her  chamber  to  the  parlor,  she  had  ever  since  been  viewing 
herself  in  the  large  looking-glass  and  practicing  pretty 
airs — now  a  smile,  now  a  ceremonious  dignity  of  aspect, 
and  now  a  softer  smile  than  the  former,  kissing  her  hand, 
likewise,  tossing  her  head  and  managing  her  fan,  while 
within  the  mirror  an  unsubstantial  little  maid  repeated 
every  gesture  and  did  all  the  foolish  things  that  Polly  did, 
but  without  making  her  ashamed  of  them.  In  short,  it 
was  the  fault  of  pretty  Polly's  ability,  rather  than  her  will, 
if  she  failed  to  be  as  complete  an  artifice  as  the  illustrious 
Feathertop  himself;  and  when  she  thus  tampered  with  her 
own  simplicity,  the  witch's  phantom  might  well  hope  to 
win  her. 

Xo  sooner  did  Polly  hear  her  father's  gouty  footsteps  ap 
proaching  the  parlor  door,  accompanied  with  the  stiff  clat 
ter  of  Feathertop's  high-heeled  shoes,  than  she  seated  her 
self  bolt  upright  and  innocently  began  warbling  a  song. 

"Polly!  Daughter  Polly!"  cried  the  old  merchant. 
"  Come  hither,  child." 

Master  Gookin's  aspect,  as  he  opened  the  door,  was 
doubtful  and  troubled. 

"This  gentleman,"  continued  he,  presenting  the 
stranger,  "is  the  Chevalier  Feathertop — nay,  I  beg  his 
pardon,  My  Lord  Feathertop — who  hath  brought  me  a 
token  of  remembrance  from  an  ancient  friend  of  mine. 
Pay  your  duty  to  his  lordship,  child,  and  honor  him  as 
his  quality  deserves." 

After   these  few  words  of  introduction  the  worshipful 


194  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

magistrate  immediately  quitted  the  room.  But  even  in 
that  brief  moment,  had  the  fair  Polly  glanced  aside  at  her 
father  instead  of  devoting  herself  wholly  to  the  brilliant 
guest,  she  might  have  taken  warning  of  some  mischief  nigh 
at  hand.  The  old  man  was  nervous,  fidgety  and  very  pale. 
Purposing  a  smile  of  courtesy,  he  had  deformed  his  face 
with  a  sort  of  galvanic  grin  which,  when  Feathertop's  back 
was  turned,  he  exchanged  for  a  scowl,  at  the  same  time 
shaking  his  fist  and  stamping  his  gouty  foot — an  incivility 
which  brought  its  retribution  along  with  it.  The  truth 
appears  to  have  been  that  Mother  Kigby's  word  of  intro 
duction,  whatever  it  might  be,  had  operated  far  more  on 
the  rich  merchant's  fears  than  on  his  good-will.  More 
over,  being  a  man  of  wonderfully  acute  observation,  he 
had  noticed  that  the  painted  figures  on  the  bowl  of 
Feathertop's  pipe  were  in  motion.  Looking  more  closely, 
he  became  convinced  that  these  figures  were  a  party  of 
little  demons,  each  duly  provided  with  horns  and  a  tail, 
and  dancing  hand  in  hand  with  gestures  of  diabolical 
merriment  round  the  circumference  of  the  pipe-bowl. 
As  if  to  confirm  his  suspicions,  while  Master  Gookin 
ushered  his  guest  along  a  dusky  passage  from  his  private 
room  to  the  parlor,  the  star  on  Feathertop's  breast  had 
scintillated  actual  flames,  and  threw  a  flickering  gleam 
upon  the  wall,  the  ceiling  and  the  floor. 

With  such  sinister  prognostics  manifesting  themselves 
on  all  hands,  it  is  not  to  be  marveled  at  that  the  merchant 
should  have  felt  that  he  was  committing  his  daughter. to  a 
very  questionable  acquaintance.  He  cursed  in  his  secret 
soul  the  insinuating  elegance  of  Feathertop's  manners  as 
this  brilliant  personage  bowed,  smiled,  put  his  hand  on  his 
heart,  inhaletl  a  long  whiff  from  his  pipe  and  enriched  the 
atmosphere  with  the  smoky  vapor  of  a  fragrant  and  visible 
sigh.  Gladly  would  poor  Master  Gookin  have  thrust  his 
dangerous  guest  into  the  street,  but  there  was  a  restraint 
and  terror  within  him.  This  respectable  old  gentleman, 
we  fear,  at  an  earlier  period  of  life  had  given  some  pledge 
or  other  to  the  Evil  Principle,  and  perhaps  was  now  to  re 
deem  it  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  daughter. 

It  so  happened  that  the  parlor  door  was  partly  of  glass, 
shaded  by  a  silken  curtain  the  folds  of  which  hung  a  little 
awry.  So  strong  was  the  merchant's  interest  in  witness 
ing  what  was  to  ensue  between  the  fair  Polly  and  the  gal- 


FEATHERTOP.  195 

lant  Feathertop  that,  after  quitting  the  room  he  could  by 
no  means  refrain  from  peeping  through  the  crevice  of  the 
curtain.  But  there  was  nothing  very  miraculous  to  be 
seen;  nothing,  except  the  trifles  previously  noticed.,  to 
confirm  the  idea  of  a  supernatural  peril  environing  the 
pretty  Polly.  The  stranger,  it  is  true,  was  evidently  a 
thorough  and  practised  man  of  the  world,  systematic  and 
self-possessed,  and,  therefore,  the  sort  of  person  to  whom 
a  parent  ought  not  to  confide  a  simple  young  girl  without 
due  watchfulness  for  the  result.  The  worthy  magistrate, 
who  had  been  conversant  with  all  degrees  and  qualities 
of  mankind,  could  not  but  perceive  every  motion  and 
gesture  of  the  distinguished  Feathertop  came  in  its  proper 
place.  Nothing  had  been  left  rude  or  native  in  him;  a 
well-digested  conventionalism  had  incorporated  itself 
thoroughly  with  his  substance  and  transformed  him  into  a 
work  of  art.  Perhaps  it  was  this  peculiarity  that  invested 
him  with  a  species  of  ghastliness  and  awe.  It  is  the  effect 
of  anything  completely  and  consummately  artificial  in  hu 
man  shape  that  the  person  impresses  us  as  an  unreality, 
and  as  having  hardly  pith  enough  to  cast  a  shadow  upon 
the  floor.  As  regarded  Feathertop,  all  this  resulted  in  a 
wild,  extravagant  and  fantastical  impression,  as  if  his  life 
and  being  were  akin  to  the  smoke  that  curled  upward  from 
his  pipe. 

But  pretty  Polly  Gookin  felt  not  thus.  The  pair  were 
now  promenading  the  room;  Feathertop  with  his  dainty 
stride  and  no  less  dainty  grimace,  the  girl  with  a  native 
maidenly  grace  just  touched,  not  spoiled,  by  a  slightly- 
affected  manner  which  seemed  caught  from  the  perfect  arti 
fice  of  her  companion.  The  longer  the  interview  continued, 
the  more  charmed  was  pretty  Polly,  until  within  the  first 
quarter  of  an  hour  (as  the  old  magistrate  noted  by  his 
watch)  she  was  evidently  beginning  to  be  in  love.  IS1  or 
need  it  have  been  witchcraft  that  subdued  her  in  such  a 
hurry;  the  poor  child's  heart,  it  may  be,  was  so  very  fer 
vent  that  it  melted  her  with  its  own  warmth,  as  reflected 
from  the  hollow  semblance  of  a  lover.  No  matter  what 
Feathertop  said,  his  words  found  depth  and  reverberation 
in  her  ear;  no  matter  what  he  did,  his  action  was  very 
heroic  to  her  eye.  And  by  this  time,  it  is  to  be  supposed, 
there  was  a  blush  on  Polly's  cheek,  a  tender  smile  about 
her  mouth  and  a  liquid  softness  in  her  glance,  while  the 


196  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

star  kept  coruscating  on  Feathertop's  breast,  and  the  little 
demons  careered  with  more  frantic  merriment  than  ever 
about  the  circumference  of  his  pipe-bowl.  Oh,  pretty 
Polly  Gookin!  why  should  these  imps  rejoice  so  madly 
that  a  silly  maiden's  heart  was  about  to  be  given  to  a 
shadow?  Is  it  so  unusual  a  misfortune — so  rare  a  triumph? 

By  and  by  leathertop  paused,  and,  throwing  himself 
into  an  imposing  attitude,  seemed  to  summon  the  fair  girl 
to  survey  his  figure  and  resist  him  longer  if  she  could. 
His  star,  his  embroidery,  his  buckles,  glowed  at  that  in 
stant  with  unutterable  splendor;  the  picturesque  hues  of 
his  attire  took  a  richer  depth  of  coloring;  there  was  a 
gleam  and  polish  over  his  whole  presence  betokening  the 
perfect  witchery  of  well-ordered  manners.  The  maiden 
raised  her  eyes  and  suffered  them  to  linger  upon  her  com 
panion  with  a  bashful  and  admiring  gaze.  Then,  as  if 
desirous  of  judging  what  value  her  own  simple  comeliness 
might  have  side  by  side  with  so  much  brilliancy,  she  cast 
a  glance  toward  the  full-length  looking-glass  in  front  of 
which  they  happened  to  be  standing.  It  was  one  of  the 
truest  plates  in  the  world  and  incapable  of  flatter}7.  No 
sooner  did  the  images  therein  reflected  meet  Polly's  eye 
than  she  shrieked,  shrank  from  the  stranger's  side,  gazed 
at  him  for  a  moment  in  the  wildest  dismay  and  sank  in 
sensible  upon  the  floor.  Feathertop,  likewise,  had  looked 
toward  the  mirror,  and  there  beheld,  not  the  glittering 
mockery  of  his  outside  show,  but  a  picture  of  the  sordid 
patchwork  of  his  real  composition  stripped  of  all  witch 
craft. 

The  wretched  simulacrum!  We  almost  pity  him.  lie 
threw  up  his  arms  with  an  expression  of  despair  that  went 
farther  than  any  of  his  previous  manifestations  toward 
vindicating  his  claims  to  be  reckoned  human.  For  per 
chance  the  only  time  since  this  so  often  empty  and  decep 
tive  life  of  mortals  began  its  course,  an  illusion  had  seen 
and  fully  recognized  itself. 

Mother  Rigby  was  seated  by  her  kitchen  hearth  in  the 
twilight  of  this  eventful  day  and  had  just  shaken  the  ashes 
out  of  a  new  pipe  when  she  heard  a  hurried  tramp  along 
the  road.  Yet  it  did  not  seem  so  much  the  tramp  of  hu 
man  footsteps  as  the  clatter  of  sticks  or  the  rattling  of  dry 
bones. 

"Ha!"  thought  the  old  witch,  "what  step  is  that? 
Whose  skeleton  is  out  of  its  grave  now,  I  wonder?" 


FEATIIERTOP.  197 

A  figure  burst  headlong  into  the  cottage  door.  It  was 
Feathertop.  His  pipe  was  still  alight,  the  star  still  flamed 
upon  his  breast,  the  embroidery  still  glowed  upon  his  gar 
ments,  nor  had  he  lost  in  any  degree  or  manner  that  could 
be  estimated  the  aspect  that  assimilated  him  with  our 
mortal  brotherhood.  But  yet  in  some  indscribable  way 
(as  is  the  case  with  all  that  has  deluded  us  when  once 
found  out)  the  poor  reality  was  felt  beneath  the  cunning 
artifice. 

"  What  has  gone  wrong?"  demanded  the  witch.  "  Did 
yonder  sniffling  hypocrite  thrust  my  darling  from  his  door? 
The  villain!  I'll  set  twenty  fiends  to  torture  him  till  he 
offers  thee  his  daughter  on  his  bended  knees!" 

"  Xo,  mother/' said  Feathertop,  despond ingly,  "  it  was 
not  that." 

"  Did  the  girl  scorn  my  precious  one?"  asked  Mother 
l\igby,  her  fierce  eyes  glowing  like  two  coals  of  Tophet. 
"  I'll  cover  her  face  with  pimples!  Her  nose  shall  be  as 
red  as  the  coal  in  thy  pipe!  Her  front  teeth  shall  drop 
out!  In  a  week  hence  she  shall  not  be  worth  thy  having!" 

"  Let  her  alone,  mother,"  answered  poor  Feathertop. 
"  The  girl  was  half  won,  and  methinks  a  kiss  from  her 
sweet  lips  might  have  made  me  altogether  human.  But." 
he  added,  after  a  brief  pause  and  then  a  howl  of  self- 
contempt,  "  I've  seen  myself,  mother!  I've  seen  myself 
for  the  wretched,  ragged,  empty  thing  I  am.  I'll  exist  no 
longer." 

Snatching  the  pipe  from  his  mouth,  he  flung  it  with 
all  his  might  against  the  chimney,  and  at  the  same  instant 
sank  upon  the  floor,  a  medley  of  straw  and  tattered  gar 
ments,  with  some  sticks  protruding  from  the  heap  and  a 
shrivelled  pumpkin  in  the  midst.  The  eyeholes  were  now 
lustreless,  but  the  rudely-carved  gap  that  just  before  had 
been  a  mouth  still  seemed  to  twist  itself  into  a  despairing 
grin,  and  was  so  far  human. 

"  Poor  fellow!"  quoth  Mother  Ivigby,  with  a  rueful  glance 
at  the  relics  of  her  ill-fated  contrivance.  "  My  poor  dear, 
pretty  Feathertop!  There  are  thousand  upon  thousands 
of  coxcombs  and  charlatans  in  the  world  made  up  of  just 
such  a  jumble  of  worn-out,  forgotten  and  good-for-nothing 
trash  as  he  was,  yet  they  live  in  fair  repute  and  never  see 
themselves  for  what  they  are.  And  why  should  my  poor 
puppet  be  the  only  one  to  know  himself  and  perish  for  it?" 


11)8  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

While  thus  muttering  the  witch  had  filled  a  fresh  pipe 
of  tobacco,  and  held  the  stem  between  her  fingers,  as 
doubtful  whether  to  thrust  it  into  her  own  mouth  or  Feather- 
top's. 

"  Poor  Feathertop!"  she  continued.  "  I  could  easily  give 
him  another  chance  and  send  him  forth  again  to-morrow. 
But  no!  His  feelings  are  too  tender — his  sensibilities  too 
deep.  He  seems  to  have  too  much  heart  to  bustle  for  his 
own  advantage  in  such  an  empty  and  heartless  world. 
Well,  well!  I'll  make  a  scarecrow  of  him,  after  all.  'Tis 
an  innocent  and  useful  vocation,  and  will  suit  my  darling 
well;  and  if  each  of  his  human  brethren  had  as  fit  a  one, 
'twould  be  the  better  for  mankind.  And,  as  for  this  pipe 
of  tobacco,  I  need  it  more  than  he." 

So  saying,  Mother  Rigby  put  the  stem  between  her  lips. 

"  Dickon,"  cried  she,  in  her  high,  sharp  tone,  "another 
coal  for  my  pipe!" 


THE  NEW  ADAM  AND  EVE.  199 


THE  NEW  ADAM  AND  EVE 


WE  WHO  are  born  into  the  world's  artificial  system  can 
never  adequately  know  how  little  in  our  present  state  and 
circumstances  is  natural  and  how  much  is  merely  the  inter 
polation  of  the  perverted  mind  and  heart  of  man.  Art  has 
become  a  second  and  stronger  Nature;  she  is  a  stepmother 
whose  crafty  tenderness  has  taught  us  to  despise  the  boun 
tiful  and  wholesome  ministrations  of  our  true  parent.  It  is 
only  through  the  medium  of  the  imagination  that  we  can 
lessen  those  iron  fetters  which  we  call  truth  and  reality  and 
make  ourselves  even  partially  sensible  what  prisoners  we 
are.  For  instance,  let  us  conceive  good  Father  Miller's  in 
terpretation  of  the  prophecies  to  have  proved  true.  The 
day  of  doom  has  burst  upon  the  globe  and  swept  away  the 
whole  race  of  men.  From  cities  and  fields,  seashore  and 
midland  mountain-region,  vast  continents,  and  even  the 
remotest  islands  of  the  ocean,  each  living  thing  is  gone. 
No  breath  of  a  created  being  disturbs  this  earthly  atmos 
phere.  But  the  abodes  of  man  and  all  that  he  has  ac 
complished,  the  footprints  of  his  wanderings  and  the 
results  of  his  toil,  the  visible  symbols  of  his  intellectual 
cultivation  and  moral  progress — in  short,  everything 
physical  that  can  give  evidence  of  his  present  position — 
shall  remain  untouched  by  the  hand  of  Destiny.  Then  to 
inherit  and  repeople  this  waste  and  deserted  earth  we  will 
suppose  a  IICAV  Adam  and  a  new  Eve  to  have  been  created 
in  the  full  development  of  mind  and  heart,  but  with  110 
knowledge  of  their  predecessors,  nor  of  the  diseased  circum 
stances  that  had  become  encrusted  around  them.  Such  a 
pair  would  at  once  distinguish  between  Art  and  Nature. 
Their  instincts  and  intuitions  would  immediatly  recognize 
the  wisdom  and  simplicity  of  the  latter,  while  the  former? 


200  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

with  its  elaborate  perversities,  would  offer  them  a  continual 
succession  of  puzzles. 

Let  us  attempt,  in  a  mood  half  sportive  and  half  thought 
ful,  to  track  these  imaginary  heirs  of  our  mortality  through 
their  first  day's  experience.  No  longer  ago  than  yesterday 
the  flame  of  human  life  was  extinguished;  there  has  been 
a  breathless  night  and  now  another  morn  approaches,  ex 
pecting  to  find  the  earth  no  less  desolate  than  at  eventide. 

It  is  dawn.  The  east  puts  on  its  immemorial  blush, 
although  no  human  eye  is  gazing  at  it;  for  all  the  phenom 
ena  of  the  natural  world  renew  themselves,  in  spite  of  the 
solitude  that  now  broods  around  the  globe.  There  is  still 
beauty  of  earth,  sea  and  sky  for  beauty's  sake.  But  soon 
there  are  to  be  spectators.  Just  when  the  earliest  sunshine 
gilds  earth's  mountain-tops  two  beings  have  come  into  life 
— not  in  such  an  Eden  as  bloomed  to  welcome  our  first 
parents,  but  in  the  heart  of  a  modern  city.  They  find 
themselves  in  existence  and  gazing  into  one  another's 
eyes.  Their  emotion  is  not  astonishment  nor  do  they  per 
plex  themselves  with  efforts  to  discover  what  and  whence 
and  why  they  are.  Each  is  satisfied  to  be  because  the 
other  exists  likewise  and  their  first  consciousness  is  of  cairn 
and  mutual  enjoyment  which  seems  not  to  have  been  the 
birth  of  that  very  moment,  but  prolonged  from  a  past 
eternity.  Thus  content  with  an  inner  sphere  which  they 
inhabit  together,  it  is  not  immediately  that  the  outward 
world  can  obtrude  itself  upon  their  notice. 

Soon,  however,  they  feel  the  invincible  necessity  of  this 
earthly  life  and  begin  to  make  acquaintance  with  the  ob 
jects  and  circumstances  that  surround  them.  Perhaps  no 
other  stride  so  vast  remains  to  be  taken  as  when  they  first 
turn  from  the  reality  of  their  mutual  glance  to  the  dreams 
and  shadows  that  perplex  them  everywhere  else. 

"Sweetest  Eve,  where  are  we?"  exclaims  the  new 
Adam;  for  a  speech,  or  some  equivalent  mode  of  expression, 
is  born  with  them  and  comes  just  as  natural  as  breath. 
"Methinks  I  do  not  recognize  this  place." 

"  Nor  I,  dear  Adam,"  replies  the  new  Eve.  "  And  what 
a  strange  place  too  !  Let  me  come  closer  to  thy  side  and 
behold  thee  only,  for  all  other  sights  trouble  and  perplex 
my  spirit." 

"  Nay,  Eve,"  replies  Adam,  who  appears  to  have  the 
stronger  tendency  toward  the  material  world  ;  "  it  were 


THE  NEW  ADAM  AND  EVE.  201 

well  that  we  gain  some  insight  into  these  matters.  We  are 
in  an  odd  situation  here.  Let  us  look  about  us." 

Assuredly,  there  are  sights  enough  to  throw  the  new  in 
inheritors  of  earth  iuto  a  state  of  hopeless  perplexity —  the 
long  lines  of  edifices,  their  windows  glittering  in  the  yellow 
sunrise  and  the  narrow  street  between,  with  its  barren 
pavement  tracked  and  battered  by  wheels  that  have  now 
rattled  into  an  irrevocable  past  ;  the  signs  with  their  unin 
telligible  hieroglyphics  ;  the  squareness  and  ugliness  and 
regular  or  irregular  deformity  of  everything  that  meets  the 
eye  ;  the  marks  of  wear  and  tear  and  unrenewed  decay 
which  distinguish  the  works  of  man  from  the  growth  of 
nature.  What  is  there  in  all  this  capable  of  the  slightest 
significance  to  minds  that  know  nothing  of  the  artificial 
system  which  is  implied  in  every  lamp-post  and  each  brick 
of  the  houses  ?  Moreover,  the  utter  loneliness  and  silence 
in  a  scene  that  originally  grew  out  of  noise  and  bustle  must 
needs  impress  a  feeling  of  desolation  even  upon  Adam  and 
Eve,  unsuspicious  as  they  are  of  the  recent  extinction  of 
human  existence.  In  a  forest  solitude  would  be  life  ;  in 
the  city  it  is  death. 

The  new  Eve  looks  around  with  a  sensation  of  doubt 
and  distrust  such  as  a  city  dame,  the  daughter  of  number 
less  generations  of  citizens,  might  experience  if  suddenly 
transported  to  the  garden  of  Eden.  At  length  her 
downcast  eye  discovers  a  small  tuft  of  grass  just  beginning 
to  sprout  among  the  stones  of  the  pavement;  she  eagerly 
grasps  it,  and  is  sensible  that  this  little  herb  awakens  some 
response  within  her  heart.  Nature  finds  nothing  else  to 
offer  her.  Adam,  after  staring  up  and  down  the  street 
without  detecting  a  single  object  that  his  comprehension 
can  lay  hold  of,  finally  turns  his  forehead  to  the  sky. 
There,  indeed,  is  something  which  the  soul  within  him 
recognizes. 

"  Look  up  yonder,  mine  own  Eve!"  he  cries.  "  Surely 
we  ought  to  dwell  among  those  gold-tinged  clouds  or  in 
the  blue  depths  beyond  them.  I  know  not  how  nor  when, 
but  evidently  we  have  strayed  away  from  our  home,  for  I 
see  nothing  hereabouts  that  seems  to  belong  to  us." 

"  Can  we  not  ascend  thither?"  inquires  Eve. 

"Why  not?"  answers  Adam,  hopefully.  "But  no; 
something  drags  us  down  in  spite  of  our  best  efforts.  Per 
chance  we  may  find  a  path  hereafter." 


202  MOSSES  FROM  ON  OLD  MANSE. 

In  the  energy  of  new  life  it  appears  no  such  impractica 
ble  feat  to  climb  into  the  sky!  But  they  have  already  re 
ceived  a  woeful  lesson  which  may  finally  go  far  toward  re 
ducing  them  to  the  level  of  the  departed  race  when  they 
acknowledge  the  necessity  of  keeping  the  beaten  track  of 
earth.  They  now  set  forth  on  a  ramble  through  the  city, 
in  the  hope  of  making  their  escape  from  this  uncongenial 
sphere.  Already  in  the  fresh  elasticity  of  their  spirits 
they  have  found  the  idea  of  weariness.  We  will  watch 
them  as  they  enter  some  of  the  shops  and  public  or  private 
edifices,  for  every  door,  whether  of  alderman  or  beggar, 
church  or  hall  of  state,  has  been  flung  wide  open  by  the 
same  agency  that  swept  away  the  inmates. 

It  so  happens,  and  not  unluckily  for  an  Adam  and  Eve 
who  are  still  in  the  costume  that  might  better  have  befit 
ted  Eden — it  so  happens  that  their  first  visit  is  to  a  fash 
ionable  dry-goods  store.  No  courteous  and  importunate 
attendants  hasten  to  receive  their  orders;  no  throng  of 
ladies  are  tossing  over  the  rich  Parisian  fabrics.  All  is  de 
serted;  trade  is  at  a  standstill,  and  not  even  an  echo  of 
the  national  watchword — "  Go  ahead!" — disturbs  the  quiet 
of  the  new  customers.  But  specimens  of  the  latest  earthly 
fashions,  silks  of  every  shade,  and  whatever  is  most  deli 
cate  or  splendid  for  the  decoration  of  the  human  form,  lie 
scattered  around  profusely  as  bright  autumnal  leaves  in  a 
forest.  Adam  looks  at  a  few  of  the  articles,  but  throws 
them  carelessly  aside  with  whatever  exclamation  may  cor 
respond  to  "  Pish!"  or  "  Pshaw!"  in  the  new  vocabulary 
of  Nature.  Eve,  however — be  it  said  without  offense  to 
her  native  modesty — examines  these  treasures  of  her  sex 
with  somewhat  livelier  interest.  A  pair  of  corsets  chance 
to  lie  upon  the  counter;  she  inspects  them  curiously,  but 
knows  not  what  to  make  of  them.  Then  she  handles  a 
fashionable  silk  with  dim  yearnings — thoughts  that  wander 
hither  and  thither,  instincts  groping  in  the  dark. 

"  On  the  whole,  I  do  not  like  it,"  she  observes,  laying 
the  glossy  fabric  upon  the  counter.  "But,  Adam,  it  is 
very  strange!  What  can  these  things  mean?  Surely  I 
ought  to  know;  yet  they  put  me  in  a  perfect  maze!" 

"Pooh,  my  dear  Eve!  Why  trouble  thy  little  head 
about  such  nonsense?"  cries  Adam,  in  a  fit  of  impatience. 
"  Let  us  go  somewhere  else.  But  stay!  How  very  beauti 
ful!  My  loveliest  Eve,  what  a  charm  you  have  imparted 
to  that  robe  by  merely  throwing  it  over  your  shoulders!" 


THE  NEW  ADAM  AND  EVE.  203 

For  Eve,  with  the  taste  that  Nature  molded  into  her 
composition,  has  taken  a  remnant  of  exquisite  silver  gauze 
and  drawn  it  around  her  form  with  an  effect  that  gives 
Adam  his  first  idea  of  the  witchery  of  dress.  He  beholds 
his  spouse  in  a  new  light,  and,  with  renewed  admiration,  yet 
is  hardly  reconciled  to  any  other  attire  than  her  own  golden 
locks.  However,  emulating  Eve's  example,  he  makes  free 
with  a  mantle  of  blue  velvet,  and  puts  it  on  so  picturesquely 
that  it  might  seem  to  have  fallen  from  heaven  upon  his 
stately  figure.  Thus  garbeii,  they  go  in  search  of  new  dis 
coveries. 

They  next  wander  into  a  cjhurch — not  to  make  a  display 
of  their  fine  clothes,  but  attracted  by  its  spire  pointing  up 
ward  to  the  sky  whither  they  have  already  yearned  to 
climb.  As  they  enter  the  portal  a  clock  which  it  was  the 
last  earthly  act  of  the  sexton  to  wind  up  repeats  the  hour 
in  deep  and  reverberating  tones,  for  Time  has  survived  his 
former  progeny,  and  with  the  iron  tongue  that  man  gave 
him  is  now  speaking  to  his  two  grandchildren.  They  listen, 
but  understand  him  not.  Nature  would  measure  time  by 
the  succession  of  thoughts  and  acts  which  constitute  real 
life,  and  not  by  hours  of  emptiness.  They  pass  up  the 
church  aisle  and  raise  their  eyes  to  the  ceiling.  Had  our 
Adam  and  Eve  become  mortal  in  some  European  city  and 
strayed  into  the  vastness  and  sublimity  of  an  old  cathe 
dral,  they  might  have  recognized  the  purpose  for  which  the 
deep-souled  founders  reared  it.  Like  the  dim  awfulness  of 
an  ancient  forest,  its  very  atmosphere  would  have  incited 
them  to  prayer.  Within  the  snug  walls  of  a  metropolitan 
church  there  can  be  no  such  influence. 

Yet  some  odor  of  religion  is  still  lingering  here,  the 
bequest  of  pious  souls  who  had  grace  to  enjoy  a  foretaste 
of  immortal  life.  Perchance  they  breathe  a  prophecy  of 
a  better  world  to  their  successors,  who  have  become  ob 
noxious  to  all  their  own  cares  and  calamities  in  the  present 
one. 

"  Eve,  something  impels  me  to  look  upward,"  says 
Adam.  "  But  it  troubles  me  to  see  this  roof  between  us 
and  the  sky.  Let  us  go  forth,  and  perhaps  we  shall  dis 
cern  a  great  face  looking  down  upon  us." 

"Yes,  a  great  face  with  a  beam  of  love  brightening  over 
it  like  sunshine,"  responds  Eve.  "  Surely  we  have  seen 
such  a  countenance  somewhere!" 


204  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

They  go  out  of  the  church,  and,  kneeling  at  its  threshold, 
give  way  to  the  spirit's  natural  instinct  of  adoration  to  a 
beneficent  Father.  But,  in  truth,  their  life  thus  far  has 
been  a  continual  prayer.  Purity  and  simplicity  hold  con 
verse  at  every  moment  with  their  Creator. 

We  now  observe  them  entering  a  court  of  justice.  But 
what  remotest  conception  can  they  attain  of  tTfe  purposes 
of  such  an  edifice?  How  should  the  idea  occur  to  them 
that  human  brethren,  of  like  nature  with  themselves,  and 
originally  included  in  the  same  law  of  love  which  is  their 
only  rule  of  life,  should  ever  need  an  outward  enforce 
ment  of  the  true  voice  within  their  souls?  And  what  save 
a  woful  experience  the  dark  result  of  many  centuries  could 
teach  them  the  sad  mysteries  of  crime?  Oh,  judgment- 
seat,  not  by  the  pure  in  heart  wast  thou  established,  nor 
in  the  simplicity  of  nature,  but  by  hard  and  wrinkled  men 
and  upon  the  accumulated  heap  of  earthly  wrong!  Thou 
art  the  very  symbol  of  man's  perverted  state. 

On  as  fruitless  an  errand  our  wanderers  next  visit  a  hall 
of  legislature,  where  Adam  places  Eve  in  the  Speaker's 
chair,  unconscious  of  the  moral  which  he  thus  exemplifies. 
Man's  intellect  moderated  by  woman's  tenderness  and 
moral  sense!  Were  such  the  legislation  of  the  world,  there 
would  be  no  need  of  state-houses,  capitols,  halls  of  parlia 
ment,  nor  even  of  those  little  assemblages  of  patriarchs 
beneath  the  shadowy  trees  by  whom  freedom  was  first 
interpreted  to  mankind  on  our  native  shores. 

Whither  go  they  next?  A  perverse  destiny  seems  to 
perplex  them  with  one  after  another  of  the  riddles  which 
mankind  put  forth  to  the  wondering  universe  and  left 
unsolved  in  their  own  destruction.  They  enter  an  edifice 
of  stern  gray  stone  standing  isolated  in  the  midst  of  others 
and  gloomy  even  in  the  sunshine,  which  it  barely  suffers  to 
penetrate  through  its  iron-grated  windows.  It  is  a  prison. 
The  jailer  has  left  his  post  at  the  summons  of  a  stronger 
authority  than  the  sheriff's.  But  the  prisoners?  Did  the 
messenger  of  fate,  when  he  shook  open  all  the  doors,  respect 
the  magistrate's  warrant  and  the  judge's  sentence,  and  leave 
the  inmates  of  the  dungeons  to  be  delivered  by  due  course 
of  earthly  law?  No;  a  new  trial  has  been  granted  in  a 
higher  court  which  may  set  judge,  jury  and  prisoner  at  its 
bar  all  in  a  row,  and  perhaps  find  one  no  less  guilty  than 
another.  The  jail,  like  the  whole  earth,  is  now  a  solitude, 


TUE  NEW  ADAM  AND  EVE.  205 

and  has  thereby  lost  something  of  its  dismal  gloom.  But 
here  are  the  narrow  cells,  like  tombs,  only  drearier  and 
deadlier,  because  in  these  the  immortal  spirit  was  buried 
with  the  body.  Inscriptions  appear  on  the  walls  scribbled 
with  a  pencil  or  scratched  with  a  rusty  nail — brief  words 
of  agony,  perhaps,  or  guilt's  desperate  defiance  to  the  world, 
or  merely  a  record  of  a  date  by  which  the  writer  strove  to 
keep  up  with  the  march  of  life.  There  is  not  a  living  eye 
that  could  now  decipher  these  memorials. 

Nor  is  it  while  so  fresh  from  their  Creator's  hand  that 
the  new  denizens  of  earth — no,  nor  their  descendants  for  a 
thousand  years — could  discover  that  this  edifice  was  a  hos 
pital  for  the  direst  disease  which  could  afflict  their  pre 
decessors.  Its  patients  bore  the  outward  marks  of  that  lep 
rosy  with  which  all  were  more  or  less  infected.  They  were 
sick — and  so  were  the  purest  of  their  brethern — with  the 
plague  of  sin.  A  deadly  sickness  indeed!  Feeling  its  symp 
toms  within  the  breast,  men  concealed  it  with  fear  and 
shame,  and  were  only  the  more  cruel  to  those  unfortunates 
whose  pestiferous  sores  were  flagrant  to  the  common  eye. 
Nothing  save  a  rich  garment  could  ever  hide  the  plague- 
spot.  In  the  course  of  the  world's  lifetime  evpry  remedy 
was  tried  for  its  cure  and  extirpation  except  the  single  one, 
the  flower  that  grew  in  heaven  and  was  sovereign  for  all 
the  miseries  of  earth.  Men  never  had  attempted  to  cure 
sin  by  Love.  Had  he  but  once  made  the  effort,  it  might 
well  have  happened  that  there  would  have  been  no  more 
need  of  the  dark  lazar-house  into  which  Adam  and  Eve 
have  wandered.  Hasten  forth  with  your  native  innocence, 
lest  the  damps  of  these  still  conscious  walls  infect  you  like 
wise,  and  thus  another  fallen  race  be  propagated. 

Passing  from  the  interior  of  the  prison  into  the  space 
within  its  outward  wall,  Adam  pauses  beneath  a  structure 
of  the  simplest  contrivance,  yet  altogether  unaccountable 
to  him.  It  consists  merely  of  two  upright  posts  supporting 
a  transverse  beam  from  which  dangles  a  cord. 

"  Eve,  Eve!"  cries  Adam,  shuddering  with  a  nameless 
horror;  "  what  can  this  thing  be?" 

"  I  know  not/'  answered  Eve.  "  But,  Adam,  my  heart 
is  sick.  There  seems  to  be  no  more  sky — no  more  sunshine." 

Well  might  Adam  shudder  and  poor  Eve  be  sick  at  heart, 
for  this  mysterious  object  was  the  type  of  mankind's  whole 
system  in  regard  to  the  great  difficulties  which  God  had 


206  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

given  to  be  solved — a  system  of  fear  and  vengeance,  never 
successful,  yet  followed  to  the  last.  Here,  ou  the  morning 
when  the  final  summons  came,  a  criminal — one  criminal 
where  none  were  guiltless — had  died  upon  the  gallows. 
Had  the  world  heard  the  footfall  of  its  own  approaching 
doom,  it  would  have  been  no  inappropriate  act  thus  to 
close  the  record  of  its  deeds  by  one  so  characteristic. 

The  two  pilgrims  now  hurry  from  the  prison.  Had  they 
known  how  the  former  inhabitants  of  earth  were  shut  up  in 
artificial  error  and  cramped  and  chained  by  their  perver 
sions,  they  might  have  compared  the  whole  moral  world  to 
a  prison-house  and  have  deemed  the  removal  of  the  race  a 
general  jail-delivery. 

They  next  enter — unannounced,  but  they  might  have 
rung  at  the  door  in  vain — a  private  mansion,  one  of  the 
stateliest  in  Beacon  street.  A  wild  and  plaintive  strain  of 
music  is  quivering  through  the  house,  now  rising  like  a  sol 
emn  organ  peal,  and  now  dying  into  the  faintest  murmur, 
as  if  some  spirit  that  had  felt  an  interest  in  the  departed 
family  were  bemoaning  itself  in  the  solitude  of  hall  and 
chamber.  Perhaps  a  virgin,  the  purest  of  mortal  race,  has 
been  left  behind  to  perform  a  requiem  for  the  whole  kindred 
of  humanity.  Not  so;  these  are  the  tones  of  an  ^Eolian 
harp,  through  which  Nature  pours  the  harmony  that  lies 
concealed  in  her  every  breath,  whether  of  summer  breeze 
or  tempest.  Adam  and  Eve  are  lost  in  rapture  unmingled 
with  surprise.  The  passing  wind  that  stirred  the  harp- 
strings  has  been  hushed  before  they  can  think  of  examin 
ing  the  splendid  furniture,  the  gorgeous  carpets  and  the 
architecture  of  the  rooms.  These  things  amuse  their  un 
practised  eyes,  but  ^appeal  to  nothing  within  their  hearts. 
Even  the  pictures  upon  the  walls  scarcely  excite  a  deeper 
interest  for  there  is  something  radically  artificial  and  de 
ceptive  in  painting  with  which  minds  in  the  primal  simplic 
ity  cannot  sympathize.  The  unbidden  guests  examine  a 
row  of  family  portraits,  but  are  too  dull  to  recognize  them 
as  men  and  women  beneath  the  disguise  of  a  preposterous 
garb,  and  with  features  and  expression  debased  because 
inherited  through  ages  of  moral  arid  physical  decay. 

Chance,  however  presents  them  with  pictures  of  human 
beauty  fresh  from  the  hand  of  Nature.  As  they  enter  a 
magnificent  apartment  they  are  astonished,  but  not 
affrighted,  to  perceive  two  figures  advancing  to  meet  them. 


THE  NEW  ADAM  AND  EVE.  207 

Is  it  not  awful  to  imagine  that  any  life  save  their  own 
should  remain  in  the  wide  world  ? 

"  How  is  this  ?"  exclaims  Adam.  "  My  beautiful  Eve, 
are  you  in  two  places  at  once  ?" 

"  And  you,  Adam  !"  answers  Eve,  doubtful  yet  delighted. 
"  Surely  that  noble  and  lovely  form  is  yours  ?  Yet  here 
you  are  by  my  side  !  I  am  content  with  one  ;  methinks 
there  should  not  be  two." 

This  miracle  is  wrought  by  a  tall  looking-glass,  the  mys 
tery  of  which  they  soon  fathom,  because  Nature  creates  a 
mirror  for  the  human  face  in  every  pool  of  water,  and  for 
her  own  great  features  in  waveless  lakes.  Pleased  and  sat 
isfied  with  gazing  at  themselves,  they  now  discover  the 
marble  statue  of  a  child  in  a  corner  of  a  room,  so  exquisitely 
idealized  that  it  is  almost  worthy  to  be  the  prophetic  like 
ness  of  their  first-born.  Sculpture  in  its  highest  excellence 
is  more  genuine  than  painting,  and  might  seem  to  be 
evolved  from  a  natural  germ  by  the  same  law  as  a  leaf  or 
flower.  The  statue  of  the  child  impresses  the  solitary  pair 
as  if  it  were  a  companion  ;  it  likewise  hints  at  secrets  both 
of  the  past  and  future. 

"  My  husband  !"  whispers  Eve. 

"  What  would  you  say,  dearest  Eve  ?"  inquires  Adam. 

' '  I  wonder  if  we  are  alone  in  the  world  ?"  she  continues, 
with  a  sense  of  something  like  fear  at  the  thought  of  other 
inhabitants.  "  This  lovely  little  form  Did  it  ever 
breathe  ?  Or  is  it  only  the  shadow  of  something  real,  like 
our  pictures  in  the  mirror  ?" 

"  It  is  strange/'  replies  Adam,  pressing  his  hand  to  his 
brow.  "  There  are  mysteries  all  around  us.  An  idea  flits 
continually  before  me  ;  would  that  I  could  seize  it  !  Eve, 
Eve  !  are  we  treading  in  the  footsteps  of  beings  that  bore  a 
likeness  to  ourselves  ?  If  so,  whither  are  they  gone,  and 
why  is  their  world  so  unfit  for  our  dwelling  place  ?" 

"  Our  great  Father  only  knows,"  answers  Eve.  But 
something  tells  me  that  we  shall  not  always  be  alone.  And 
how  sweet  if  other  beings  were  to  visit  us  in  the  shape  of 
this  fair  image  I" 

Then  they  wander  through  the  house,  and  everywhere 
find  tokens  of  human  life  which  now,  with  the  idea  recently 
suggested,  excite  a  deeper  curiosity  in  their  bosoms.  Woman 
has  here  left  traces  of  her  delicacy  and  refinement,  and  of 
her  gentle  labors.  Eve  ransacks  a  work-basket,  and  in- 


208  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

stinctively  thrusts  the  rosy  tip  of  her  finger  into  a  thimble. 
She  takes  up  a  piece  of  embroidery  glowing  with  mimic 
flowers,  in  one  of  which  a  fair  damsel  of  the  departed  race 
has  left  her  needle.  Pity  that  the  day  of  doom  should  have 
anticipated  the  completion  of  such  a  useful  task  !  Eve  feels 
almost  conscious  of  the  skill  to  finish  it.  A  piano-forte  has 
been  left  open.  She  flings  her  hand  carelessly  over  the  keys, 
and  strikes  out  a  sudden  melody  no  less  natural  than  the 
strains  of  the  ^Eolian  harp,  but  joyous  with  the  dance  of 
her  yet  unburdened  life.  Passing  through  a  dark  entry,, 
they  find  a  broom  behind  the  door,  and  Eve,  who  comprises 
the  whole  nature  of  womanhood,  has  a  dim  idea  that  it  is 
an  instrument  proper  for  her  hand.  In  another  apartment 
they  behold  a  canopied  bed  and  all  the  appliances  of  lux 
urious  repose;  a  heap  of  forest-leaves  would  be  more  to  the 
purpose.  They  enter  the  nursery  and  are  perplexed  with 
the  sight  of  little  gowns  and  caps,  tiny  shoes  and  a  cradle, 
amid  the  drapery  of  which  is  stiil  to  be  seen  the  impress  of 
a  baby's  form.  Adam  slightly  notices  these  trifles,  but  Eve 
becomes  involved  in  a  fit  of  mute  reflection  from  which  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  rouse  her. 

By  a  most  unlucky  arrangement  there  was  to  have  been 
a  grand  dinner-party  in  this  mansion  on  the  very  day  when 
the  whole  human  family,  including  the  invited  guests,  were 
summoned  to  the  unknown  regions  of  illimitable  space.  At 
the  moment  of  fate  the  table  was  actually  spread  and  the 
company  on  the  point  of  sitting  down.  Adam  and  Eve 
came  unbidden  to  the  banquet;  it  has  now  been  some  time 
cold,  but  otherwise  furnishes  them  with  highly-favorable 
specimens  of  the  gastronomy  of  their  predecessors.  But  it 
is  difficult  to  imagine  the  perplexity  of  the  unperverted 
couple  in  endeavoring  to  find  proper  food  for  their  first 
meal  at  a  table  where  the  cultivated  appetites  of  a  fashion 
able  party  were  to  have  been  gratified.  AVill  nature  teach 
them  the  mystery  of  a  plate  of  turtle-soup?  Will  she  em 
bolden  them  to  attack  a  haunch  of  venison?  Will  she  in 
itiate  them  into  the  merits  of  a  Parisian  pasty  imported  by 
the  last  steamer  that  ever  crossed  the  Atlantic?  Will  she 
not,  rather,  bid  them  turn  with  disgust  from  fish,  fowl  and 
flesh  which  to  their  pure  nostrils  steam  with  a  loathsome 
odor  of  death  and  corruption?  Food?  The  bill  of  fare 
contains  nothing  which  they  recognize  as  such. 

Fortunately,  however,  the  desert  is  ready  upon  a  neigh- 


THE  NEW  ADAM  AND  EVE.  209 

boring  table.  Adam,  whose  appetite  and  animal  instincts 
are  quicker  than  those  of  Eve,  discovers  this  fitting  ban 
quet. 

'(  Here,  dearest  Eve!  "  he  exclaims;  "  here  is  food." 

"  Well,"  answered  she,  with  the  germ  of  a  housewife  stir 
ring  within  her,  "  we  have  been  so  busy  to-day  that  a 
picked-up  dinner  must  serve." 

So  Eve  comes  to  the  table,  and  receives  a  red-cheeked 
apple  from  her  husband's  hand  in  requital  of  her  predeces 
sor's  fatal  gift  to  our  common  grandfather.  She  eats  it 
without  sin,  and,  let  us  hope,  with  no  disastrous  conse 
quences  to  her  future  progeny.  They  make  a  plentiful  yet 
temperate  meal  of  fruit,  which,  though  not  gathered  in 
Paradise,  is  legitimately  derived  from  the  seeds  that  were 
planted  there.  Their  primal  appetite  is  satisfied. 

"  What  shall  we  drink,  Eve?"  inquires  Adam. 

Eve  peeps  among  some  bottles  and  decanters  which,  as 
they  contain  fluids,  she  naturally  conceives  must  be  proper 
to  quench  thirst.  But  never  before  did  claret,  hock  and 
Madeira  of  rich  and  rare  perfume  excite  such  disgust  as  now. 

"Bah! "she  exclaims,  after  smelling  at  various  wines, 
"  What  stuff  is  here?  The  beings  who  have  gone  before  us 
could  not  have  possessed  the  same  nature  that  we  do,  for 
neither  their  hunger  nor  thirst  were  like  our  own!" 

tf  Pray  hand  me  yonder  bottle,"  says  Adam.  44  If  it  be 
drinkable  by  any  manner  of  mortal,  1  must  moisten  my 
throat  with  it." 

After  some  remonstrances,  she  takes  up  a  champagne- 
bottle,  but  is  frightened  by  the  sudden  explosion  of  the 
cork,  and  drops  it  upon  the  floor.  There  the  untasted  liq 
uor  effervesces.  Had  they  quaffed  it,  they  would  have  ex 
perienced  that  brief  delirium  whereby,  whether  excited  by 
moral  or  physical  causes,  man  sought  to  recompense  him 
self  for  the  calm,  lifelong  joys  which  he  had  lost  by  his  re 
volt  from  nature.  At  length,  in  a  refrigerator,  Eve  finds 
a  glass  pitcher  of  water  pure,  cold  and  bright  as  ever  gushed 
from  a  fountain  among  the  hills.  Both  drink,  and  such 
refreshment  does  it  bestow  that  they  question  one  another 
if  this  precious  liquid  be  not  identical  with  the  stream  of 
life  within  them. 

"  And  now,"  observes  Adam,  "  we  must  again  try  to  dis 
cover  what  sort  of  a  world  this  is  and  why  we  have  been 
sent  hither." 


210  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"  Why?  To  love  one  another!"  cries  Eve.  "  Is  not  that 
employment  enough?" 

"  Truly  is  it,"  answers  Adam,  kissing  her;  "  but  still — I 
know  not — something  tells  us  there  is  labor  to  be  done. 
Perhaps  our  allotted  task  is  no  other  than  to  climb  into  the 
sky,  which  is  so  much  more  beautiful  than  earth." 

"Then  would  we  were  there  now,"  murmurs  Eve,  "that 
no  task  or  duty  might  come  between  us!" 

They  leave  the  hospitable  mansion  and  we  next  see  them 
passing  down  State  street.  The  clock  on  the  old  State- 
House  points  to  high  noon,  when  the  Exchange  should  be 
in  its  glory  and  present  the  liveliest  emblem  of  what  was 
the  sole  business  of  life  as  regarded  a  multitude  of  the  fore 
gone  worldlings.  It  is  over  now.  The  Sabbath  of  eternity 
has  shed  its  stillness  along  the  street.  Not  even  a  newsboy 
assails  the  two  solitary  passers-by  with  an  extra  penny 
paper  from  the  office  of  the  Times  or  Mail  containing  a  full 
account  of  yesterday's  terrible  catastrophe.  Of  all  the  dull 
times  that  merchants  and  speculators  have  known  this  is 
the  very  worst,  for,  so  far  as  they  were  concerned,  creation 
itself  has  taken  the  benefit  of  the  bankrupt  act.  After  all, 
it  is  a  pity.  Those  mighty  capitalists  who  had  just  attained 
the  wished-for  wealth,  those  shrewd  men  of  traffic  who  had 
devoted  so  many  years  to  the  most  intricate  and  artificial 
of  sciences  and  had  barely  mastered  it  when  the  universal 
bankruptcy  was  announced  by  peal  of  trumpet;  can  they 
have  been  so  incautious  as  to  provide  no  currency  of  the 
country  whither  they  have  gone,  nor  any  bills  of  exchange 
or  letters  of  credit  from  the  needy  on  earth  to  the  cash- 
keepers  of  heaven? 

Adam  and  Eve  enter  a  bank.  Start  not,  ye  whose  funds 
are  treasured  there;  you  will  never  need  them  now.  Call 
not  for  the  police;  the  stones  of  the  street  and  the  coin  of 
the  vaults  are  of  equal  value  to  this  simple  pair.  Strange 
sight!  They  take  up  the  bright  gold  in  handfuls  and 
throw  it  sportively  into  the  air  for  the  sake  of  seeing  the 

flittering  worthlessness  descend  again  in  a  shower.  They 
now  not  that  each  of  those  small  yellow  circles  was  once  a 
magic  spell  potent  to  sway  men's  hearts  and  mystify  their 
moral  sense.  Here  let  them  pause  in  the  investigation  of 
the  past.  They  have  discovered  the  mainspring,  the  life, 
the  very  essence  of  the  system  that  had  wrought  itself  into 
the  vitals  of  mankiiicl  and  choked  their  original  nature  in 


THE  NEW  ADAM  AND  EVE.  21 1 

its  deadly  grip.  Yet  how  powerless  over  these  young  in 
heritors  of  earth's  hoarded  wealth!  And  here,,  too,  are 
huge  packages  of  bank-notes,  those  talismanic  slips  of  paper 
which  once  had  the  efficacy  to  build  up  enchanted  palaces 
like  exhaltations  and  work  all  kinds  of  perilous  wonders, 
yet  were  themselves  but  the  ghosts  of  money,  the  shadows 
of  a  shade.  How  like  is  this  vault  to  a  magician's  cave 
when  the  all-powerful  wand  is  broken  and  the  visionary 
splendor  vanished  and  the  iloor  strewn  with  fragments  of 
shattered  spells  and  lifeless  shapes  once  animated  by 
demons! 

"  Everywhere,  my  dear  Eve,"  observes  Adam,  "we  11  ml 
heaps  of  rubbish  of  one  kind  or  another.  Somebody,  I  am 
convinced,  has  taken  pains  to  collect  them,  but  for  what 
purpose?  Perhaps  hereafter  we  shall  be  moved  to  do  the 
like.  Can  that  be  our  business  in  the  world?'" 

"•  Oh,  no,  no,  Adam !"  answers  Eve.  "  It  would  be  better 
to  sit  down  quietly  and  look  upward  to  the  sky." 

They  leave  the  bank  and  in  good  time;  for  had  they 
tarried  later,  they  would  probably  have  encountered  some 
gouty  old  goblin  of  a  capitalist  whose  soul  could  not  long 
be  anywhere  save  in  the  vault  with  his  treasure. 

Next  they  drop  into  a  jeweler's  shop.  They  are  pleased 
with  the  glow  of  gems,  and  Adam  twines  a  string  of 
beautiful  pearls  around  the  head  of  Eve  and  fastens  his 
own  mantle  with  a  magnificent  diamond  brooch.  Eve 
thanks  him,  and  views  herself  with  delight  in  the  nearest 
looking-glass.  Shortly  afterward,  observing  a  bouquet  of 
roses  and  other  brilliant  flowers  in  a  vase'  of  water,  she 
flings  away  the  inestimable  pearls  and  adorns  herself  with 
these  lovelier  gems  of  Mature.  They  charm  her  with  senti 
ment  as  well  as  beauty. 

"  Surely  they  are  living  beings/'  she  remarks  to  Adam. 

"  I  think  so,"  replies  Adam,  "and  they  seem  to  be  as 
little  at  home  in  the  world  as  ourselves." 

We  must  not  attempt  to  follow  every  footstep  of  these 
investigators  whom  their  Creator  has  commissioned  to  pass 
unconscious  judgment  upon  the  works  and  ways  of  the 
vanished  race.  By  this  time,  being  endowed  with  quick 
and  accurate  perceptions,  they  begin  to  understand  the 
purpose  of  the  many  things  around  them.  They  conject 
ure,  for  instance,  that  the  edifices  of  the  city  were  "erected— 
not  by  the  immediate  Hand  that  made  the  world3  but  bv 


212  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

being  somewhat  similar  to  themselves — for  shelter  and  con 
venience.  But  how  will  they  explain  the  magnificence  of 
one  habitation  as  compared  with  the  squalid  misery  of  an 
other?  Through  what  medium  can  the  idea  of  servitude 
enter  their  minds?  When  will  they  comprehend  the  great 
and  miserable  fact — the  evidences  of  which  appeal  to  their 
senses  everywhere — that  one  portion  of  earth's  lost  inhabit 
ants  was  rolling  in  luxury  while  the  multitude  was  toiling 
for  scanty  food?  A  wretched  change,  indeed,  must  be 
wrought  in  their  own  hearts  ere  they  can  conceive  the  pri 
mal  decree  of  Love  to  have  been  so  completely  abrogated 
that  a  brother  should  ever  want  what  his  brother  had. 
When  their  intelligence  shall  have  reached  so  far,  Earth's 
new  progeny  will  have  little  reason  to  exult  over  her  old 
rejected  one. 

Their  wanderings  have  now  brought  them  into  the 
suburbs  of  the  city.  They  stand  on  a  grassy  brow  of  a  hill, 
at  the  foot  of  a  granite  obelisk  which  points  its  great  finger 
upward,  as  if  the  human  family  had  agreed  by  a  visible 
symbol  of  age-long  endurance  to  offer  some  high  sacrifice 
of  thanksgiving  or  supplication.  The  solemn  height  of  the 
monument,  its  deep  simplicity  and  the  absence  of  any 
vulgar  and  practical  use,  all  strengthen  its  effect  upon 
Adam  and  Eve  and  lead  them  to  interpret  it  by  a  purer 
sentiment  than  the  builders  thought  of  expressing. 

"  Eve,  it  is  a  visible  prayer/'  observed  Adam. 

"And  we  will  pray  too/' she  replies. 

Let  us  pardon  these  poor  children  of  neither  father  nor 
mother  for  so  absurdly  mistaking  the  purport  of  the  memo 
rial  which  man  founded  and  woman  finished  on  far-famed 
Bunker  Hill.  The  idea  of  war  is  not  native  to  their  souls. 
Nor  have  they  sympathies  for  the  brave  defenders  of 
liberty,  since  oppression  is  one  of  their  unconjectural  mys 
teries.  Could  they  guess  that  the  green  sward  on  which 
they  stand  so  peacefully  was  once  strewn  with  human 
corpses  and  purple  with  their  blood,  it  would  equally  amaze 
them  that  one  generation  of  men  should  perpetuate  such 
carnage,  and  that  a  subsequent  generation  should  triumph 
antly  commemorate  it. 

With  a  sense  of  delight  they  now  stroll  across  green  fields 
and  along  the  margin  of  a  quiet  river.  Not  to  track  them 
too  closely,  we  next  find  the  wanderers  entering  a  Gothic 
edifice  of  gray  stone  where  the  bygone  world  has  left  what- 


THE  NEW  ADAM  AND  EVE.  213 

ever  it  deemed  worthy  of  record  in  the  rich  library  of 
Harvard  University.  No  student  ever  yet  enjoyed  such 
solitude  and  silence  as  now  broods  within  its  deep  alcoves. 
Little  do  the  present  visitors  understand  what  opportuni 
ties  are  thrown  away  upon  them.  Yet  Adam  looks  anx 
iously  at  the  long  rows  of  volumes — those  storied  heights 
of  human  lore — ascending  one  above  another  from  floor 
to  ceiling.  He  takes  up  a  bulky  folio.  It  opens  in  his 
hands,  as  if  spontaneously  to  impart  the  spirit  of  its  author 
to  the  yet  unworn  and  untainted  intellect  of  the  fresh- 
created  mortal.  He  stands  poring  over  the  regular  columns 
of  mystic  characters,  seemingly  in  studious  mood,  for  the 
unintelligible  thought  upon  the  page  has  a  mysterious  rela 
tion  to  his  mind,  and  makes  itself  i'elt  as  if  it  were  a  burden 
flung  upon  him.  He  is  even  painfully  perplexed,  and 
grasps  vainly  at  he  knows  not  what.  Oh,  Adam,  it  is  too 
soon — too  soon  by  at  least  5,000  years — to  put  on  spectacles 
and  busy  yourself  in  the  alcoves  of  a  library! 

"What  can  this  be?"  he  murmurs,  at  last.  "Eve,  me- 
thinks  nothing  is  so  desirable  as  to  find  out  the  mystery  of 
this  big  and  heavy  object  with  its  thousand  thin  divisions. 
See!  it  stares  me  in  the  face  as  if  it  were  about  to  speak." 

Eve,  by  a  feminine  instinct,  is  dipping  into  a  volume  of 
fashionable  poetry,  the  production  of  certainly  the  most 
fortunate  of  earthly  bards,  since  his  lay  continues  in  vogue 
when  all  the  great  masters  of  the  lyre  have  passed  into  ob 
livion.  But  let  not  his  ghost  be  too  exultant.  The  world's 
one  lady  tosses  the  book  upon  the  floor  and  laughs  merrily 
at  her  husband's  abstracted  mien. 

"  My  dear  Adam,"  cries  she,  "  you  look  pensive  and  dis 
mal!  Do  fling  down  that  stupid  thing;  for  even  if  it 
should  speak,  it  would  not  be  worth  attending  to.  Let  us 
talk  with  one  another,  and  with  the  sky,  and  the  green 
earth  and  its  trees  and  flowers.  They  will  teach  us  better 
knowledge  than  we  can  find  here." 

"  Well,  Eve,  perhaps  you  are  right,"  replies  Adam,  with 
a  sort  of  sigh.  "  Still,  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  in 
terpretation  of  the  riddles  amid  which  we  have  been  wan 
dering  all  day  long  might  here  be  discovered." 

"  It  may  be  better  not  to  seek  the  interpretation,"  per 
sists  Eve.  "  For  my  part,  the  air  of  this  place  does  not 
suit  me.  If  you  love  me.  come  away." 

She  prevails,  and  rescues  him  from  the  mysterious  perils 


214  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

of  the  library.  Happy  influence  of  woman!  Had  he  lin 
gered  there  long  enough  to  obtain  a  clue  to  its  treasures, 
as  was  not  impossible,  his  intellect  being  of  human  struct 
ure,  indeed,  but  with  an  an  transmitted  vigor  and  acuteness 
— had  he  then  and  there  become  a  student,  the  annalist  of 
our  poor  world  would  soon  have  recorded  the  downfall  of 
a  second  Adam.  The  fatal  apple  of  another  tree  of  knowl 
edge  would  have  been  eaten.  All  the  perversions  and  soph 
istries  and  false  wisdom  so  aptly  mimicking  the  true;  all 
the  narrow  truth  so  partial  that  it  becomes  more  deceptive 
than  falsehood;  all  the  wrong  principles  and  worse  practice, 
the  pernicious  examples  and  mistaken  rules  of  life;  all  the 
specious  theories  which  turn  earth  intocloudland  and  men 
into  shadows;  all  the  sad  experience  which  it  took  mankind 
so  many  ages  to  accumulate,  and  from  which  they  never 
drew  a  moral  for  their  future  guidance — the  whole  heap  of 
this  disastrous  lore  would  have  tumbled  at  once  upon 
Adam's  head.  There  would  have  been  nothing  left  for 
him  but  to  take  up  the  already  abortive  experiment  of 
life  where  we  had  dropped  it,  and  toil  onward  with  it  a 
little  farther. 

But  blessed  in  his  ignorance;  he  may  still  enjoy  a  new 
world  in  our  worn-out  one.  Should  he  fall  short  of  good 
even  as  far  as  we  did,  he  has  at  least  the  freedom — no 
worthless  one — to  make  errors  for  himself.  And  his  liter 
ature,  when  the  progress  of  centuries  shall  create  it,  will 
be  not  interminably  repeated  echo  of  our  own  poetry  and 
reproduction  of  the  images  that  were  molded  by  our  great 
fathers  of  song  and  fiction,  but  a  melody  never  yet  heard 
on  earth,  and  intellectual  forms  nnbreathed  upon  by  our 
conceptions.  Therefore  let  the  dust  of  ages  gather  upon 
the  volumes  of  the  library  and  in  due  season  the  roof  of  the 
edifice  crumbled  down  upon  the  whole.  When  the  second 
Adam's  descendants  shall  have  collected  as  much  rubbish 
of  their  own,  it  will  be  time  enough  to  dig  into  our  ruins 
and  compare  the  literary  advancement  of  two  independent 
races. 

But  we  are  looking  forward  too  far.  It  seems  to  be  the 
vice  of  those  who  have  a  long  past  behind  them.  We  will 
return  to  the  new  Adam  and  Eve,  who,  having  no  reminis 
cences  save  dim  and  fleeting  visions  of  a  pre-existence,  are 
content  to  live  and  be  happy  in  the  present. 

The  day  is  near  its  close  when  these  pilgrims,  who  derive 


THE  NEW  ADAM  AND  EVE.  215 

their  being  from  no  dead  progenitors,  reach  the  cemetery 
of  Mount  Auburn.  With  light  hearts — for  earth  and  sky 
now  gladden  each  other  with  beauty — they  tread  along  the 
winding  paths,  among  marble  pillars,  mimic  temples,  urns, 
obelisks  and  sarcophagi,  sometimes  pausing  to  contemplate 
these  fantasies  of  human  growth,  and  sometimes  to  admire 
the  flowers  wherewith  kind  Nature  converts  decay  to  love 
liness.  Can  death,  in  the  midst  of  his  old  triumphs,  make 
them  sensible  that  they  have  taken  up  the  heavy  burden 
of  mortality  which  a  whole  species  had  thrown  down  ? 
Dust  kindred  to  their  own  has  never  lain  in  the  grave. 
Will  they,  then,  recognize,  and  so  soon,  that  Time  and  the 
elements  have  an  indefeasible  claim  upon  their  bodies  ? 
Not  improbably  they  may.  There  must  have  been  shadows 
enough  even  amid  the  primal  sunshine  of  their  existence  to 
suggest  the  thought  of  the  soul's  incongruity  with  its  cir 
cumstances.  They  have  already  learned  that  something  is 
to  be  thrown  aside.  The  idea  of  Death  is  in  them,  or  not 
far  off,  but,  were  they  to  choose  a  symbol  for  him,  it  would 
be  the  butterfly  soaring  upward,  or  the  bright  angel  beck 
oning  them  aloft,  or  the  child  asleep  with  soft  dreams  vis 
ible  through  her  transparent  purity. 

Such  a  child,  in  whitest  marble,'  they  have  found  among 
the  monuments  of  Mount  Auburn. 

"Sweetest  Eve/'  observes  Adam,  while  hand  in  hand 
they  contemplate  this  beautiful  object,  "yonder  sun  has 
left  us,  and  the  whole  world  is  fading  from  our  sight. 
Let  us  sleep  as  this  lovely  little  figure  is  sleeping.  Our 
Father  only  knows  whether  what  outward  things  we  have 
possessed  to-day  are  to  be  snatched  from  us  forever.  But, 
should  our  earthly  life  be  leaving  us  with  the  departing 
light,  we  need  not  doubt  that  another  morn  will  find  us 
somewhere  beneath  the  smile  of  God.  I  feel  that  he  has 
imparted  the  boon  of  existence,  never  to  be  resumed." 

"And  no  matter  where  we  exist/'  replies  Eve,  "for  we 
shall  always  be  together/' 


216  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 


EGOTISM;  OR,  THE  BOSOM-SERPENT. 

FROM  THE  UNPUBLISHED  "ALLEGORIES  OF 
THE  HEART." 


"  HERE  he  comes  !  "  shouted  the  boys  along  the  street. 
"Here  comes  the  man  with  a  snake  in  his  bosom  \" 

This  outcry,  saluting  Herkimer's  ears  as  he  was  about  to 
enter  the  iron  gate  of  the  Elliston  mansion,  made  him 
pause.  It  was  not  without  a  shudder  that  he  found  him 
self  on  the  point  of  meeting  his  former  acquaintance, 
whom  he  had  known  in  the  glory  of  youth,  and  whom  now, 
after  an  interval  of  five  years,  he  was  to  find  the  victim 
either  of  a  diseased  fancy  or  a  horrible  physical  misfortune. 

"  'A  snake  in  his  bosom  ! ' "  repeated  the  young  sculptor 
to  himself.  "  It  must  be  he  ;  no  second  man  on  earth  has 
such  a  bosom-friend  !  And  now,  my  poor  Rosina,  Heaven 
grant  me  wisdom  to  discharge  my  errand  aright  !  Woman's 
faith  must  be  strong  indeed,  since  thine  has  not  yet  failed/' 

Thus  musing,  he  took  his  stand  at  the  entrance  of  the 
gate  and  waited  until  the  personage  so  singularly  announced 
should  make  his  appearance.  After  an  instant  or  two  he 
beheld  the  figure  of  a  lean  man  of  unwholesome  look,  with 
glittering  eyes  and  long  black  hair,  who  seemed  to  imitate 
the  motion  of  a  snake,  for,  instead  of  walking  straight  for 
ward  with  open  front,  he  undulated  along  the  pavement  in 
a  curved  line.  It  may  be  too  fanciful  to  say  that  something 
either  in  his  moral  or  material  aspect  suggested  the  idea  that 
a  miracle  had  been  wrought  by  transforming  a  serpent  into 
a  man,  but  so  imperfectly  that  the  snaky  nature  was  yet 
hidden,  and  scarcely  hidden,  under  the  mere  outward  guise 

*The  physical  fact  to  which  it  is  here  attempted  to  give  a  moral 
signification  has  been  known  to  occur  in  more  than  one  instance. 


EGOTISM;  OR,  THE  BOSOM-SERPENT.  217 

of  humanity.  Herkimer  remarked  that  his  complexion 
had  a  greenish  tinge  over  its  sickly  white,  reminding  him 
of  a  species  of  marble  out  of  which  he  had  once  wrought 
a  head  of  Envy  with  her  snaky  locks. 

The  wretched  being  approached  the  gate,  but,  instead  of 
entering,  stopped  short  and  fixed  the  glitter  of  his  eye  full 
upon  the  compassionate  yet  steady  countenance  of  the 
sculptor. 

"  It  gnaws  me!     It  gnaws  me!"  he  exclaimed. 

And  then  there  was  an  audible  hiss,  but  whether  it  came 
from  the  apparent  lunatic's  own  lips  or  was  the  real  hiss  of 
a  serpent  might  admit  of  discussion.  At  all  events,  it 
made  Herkimer  shudder  to  his  heart's  core. 

"  Do  you  know  me,  George  Herkimer?"  asked  the  snake- 
possessed. 

Herkimer  did  know  him,  but  it  demanded  all  the  inti 
mate  and  practical  acquaintance  with  the  human  face  ac 
quired  by  modelling  actual  likenesses  in  clay  to  recognize 
the  features  of  Roderick  Elliston  in  the  visage  that  now 
met  the  sculptor's  gaze.  Yet  it  was  he.  It  added  nothing 
to  the  wonder  to  reflect  that  the  once  brilliant  young  man 
had  undergone  this  odious  and  fearful  change  during  the 
no  more  than  five  brief  years  of  llerkimer's  abode  at  Flor 
ence.  The  possibility  of  such  a  transformation  being 
granted,  it  was  as  easy  to  conceive  it  effected  in  a  moment 
as  in  an  age.  Inexpressibly  shocked  and  startled,  it  was 
still  the  keenest  pang  when  llerkimer  remembered  that 
the  fate  of  his  cousin  Rosina,  the  ideal  of  gentle  woman 
hood,  was  indissolubly  interwoven  with  that  of  a  being 
whom  Providence  seemed  to  have  unhumanized. 

"Elliston— Roderick,"  cried  he— "1  had  heard  of  this, 
but  my  conception  came  far  short  of  the  truth.  What  has 
befallen  you?  Why  do  I  find  you  thus?" 

"Oh,  'tis  a  mere  nothing.  A  snake,  a  snake — the  com 
monest  thing  in  the  world.  A  snake  in  the  bosom,  that's 
all,"  answered  Roderick  Elliston.  "But  how  is  your  own 
breast?"  continued  he,  looking  the  sculptor  in  the  eye  with 
the  most  acute  and  penetrating  glance  that  it  had  ever  been 
his  fortune  to  encounter.  "All  pure  and  wholesome?  No 
reptile  there?  By  my  faith  and  conscience  and  by  the 
devil  within  me,  here  is  a  wonder!  A  man  without  a,  ser 
pent  in  his  bosom!" 

"Be  calm,  Elliston,"  whispered   George  Herkimer,  lay- 


21 8  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

ing  his  hand  upon  the  shoulder  of  the  snake-possessed. 
"  I  have  crossed  the  ocean  to  meet  you.  Listen — let  us 
be  private — I  bring  a  message  from  Rosina — from  your 
wife!" 

"  It  gnaws  me!     It  gnaws  me!"  muttered  Roderick. 

With  this  exclamation,  the  most  frequent  in  his  mouth, 
the  unfortunate  man  clutched  both  hands  upon  his  breast, 
as  if  an  intolerable  sting  or  torture  impelled  him  to  rend  it 
open  and  let  out  the  living  mischief  even  where  it  inter 
twined  with  his  own  life.  He  then  freed  himself  from 
Herkimer's  grasp  by  a  subtle  motion,  and,  gliding  through 
the  gate,  took  refuge  in  his  antiquated  family-residence. 
The  sculptor  did  not  pursue  him.  He  saw  that  no  avail 
able  intercourse  could  be  expected  at  such  a  moment,  and 
was  desirous,  before  another  meeting,  to  inquire  closely  into 
the  nature  of  Roderick's  disease  and  the  circumstances  that 
had  reduced  him  to  so  lamentable  a  condition.  He  suc 
ceeded  in  obtaining  the  necessary  information  from  an 
eminent  medical  gentleman. 

Shortly  after  Elliston's  separation  from  his  wife — now 
nearly  four  years  ago — his  associates  had  observed  a  singu 
lar  gloom  spreading  over  his  daily  life  like  those  chill  gray 
mists  that  sometimes  steal  away  the  sunshine  from  a  sum 
mer's  morning.  The  symptoms  caused  them  endless  per 
plexity.  They  knew  not  whether  ill-health  were  robbing 
his  spirits  of  elasticity,  or  whether  a  canker  of  the  mind 
was  gradually  eating,  as  such  cankers  do,  from  his 
moral  system  into  the  physical  frame,  which  is  but  the 
shadow  of  the  former.  They  looked  for  the  root  of  this 
trouble  in  his  shattered  schemes  of  domestic  bliss — wil 
fully  shattered  by  himself — but  could  not  be  satisfied  of  its 
existence  there.  Some  thought  that  their  once  brilliant 
friend  was  in  an  incipient  stage  of  insanity,  of  which  his 
passionate  impulses  had  perhaps  been  the  forerunners; 
others  prognosticated  a  general  blight  and  gradual  decline. 
From  Roderick's  own  lips  they  could  learn  nothing.  More 
than  once,  it  is  true,  he  had  been  heard  to  say,  clutching 
his  hands  convulsively  upon  his  breast:  "  It  gnaws  me!  It 
gnaws  me!"  but  by  different  auditors  a  great  diversity  of 
explanation  was  assigned  to  this  ominous  expression. 
What  could  it  be  that  gnawed  the  breast  of  Roderick 
Elliston?  Was  it  sorrow?  Was  it  merely  the  tooth  of 
physical  disease?  Or,  in  his  reckless  course,  often  verging 


EGOTISM;  OH,  THE  BOSOM-SERPENT.  210 

upon  profligacy,  if  not  plunging  into  its  depths,  bad  he 
been  guilty  of  some  deed  which  made  bis  bosom  a  prey  to 
the  deadlier  fangs  of  remorse?  There  was  plausible 
ground  for  each  of  these  conjectures,  but  it  must  not  be 
concealed  that  more  than  one  elderly  gentleman,  the 
victim  of  good  cheer  and  slothful  habits,  magisterially 
pronounced  the  secret  of  the  whole  matter  to  be  dyspepsia. 

Meanwhile,  Roderick  seemed  aware  how  generally  he  had 
become  the  subject  of  curiosity  and  conjecture,  and,  with  a 
morbid  repugnance  to  such  notice,  or  to  any  notice  what 
soever,  estranged  himself  from  all  companionship.  Not 
merely  the  eye  of  man  was  a  horror  to  him,  not  merely 
the  light  of  a  friend's  countenance,  but  even  the  blessed 
sunshine  likewise,  which  in  its  universal  beneficence  typi 
fies  the  radiance  of  the  Creator's  face,  expressing  his  love 
for  all  the  creatures  of  His  hand.  The  dusky  twilight  was 
now  too  transparent  for  Roderick  Elliston;  the  blackest 
midnight  was  his  chosen  hour  to  steal  abroad;  and  if  ever 
he  were  seen,  it  was  when  the  watchman's  lantern  gleamed 
upon  his  figure  gliding  along  the  street  with  his  hands 
clutched  upon  his  bosom,  still  muttering:  "  It  gnaws  me! 
It  gnaws  me!"  AYhat  could  it  be  that  gnawed  him? 

After  a  time  it  became  known  that  Elliston  was  in  the 
habit  of  resorting  to  all  the  noted  quacks  that  infested  the 
city  or  whom  money  would  tempt  to  journey  thither  from  a 
distance.  By  one  of  these  persons,  in  the  exultation  of  a 
supposed  cure,  it  was  proclaimed  far  and  wide,  by  dint  of 
hand-bills  and  little  pamphlets  on  dingy  paper,  that  a  dis 
tinguished  gentleman,  Roderick  Elliston,  Esq.,  had  been  re 
lieved  of  a  snake  in  his  stomach.  So  here  was  a  monstrous 
secret  ejected  from  its  lurking  place  into  public  view  in  all 
its  horrible  deformity.  The  mystery  was  out,  but  not  so 
the  bosom-serpent.  He,  if  it  were  anything  but  a  delusion, 
still  lay  coiled  in  his  living  den.  The  empiric's  cure  had 
been  a  sham,  the  effect,  it  was  supposed,  of  some  stupefy 
ing  drug,  which  more  nearly  caused  the  death  of  the 
patient  than  of  the  odious  reptile  that  possessed  him. 
When  Roderick  Elliston  regained  entire  sensibility,  it  was 
to  find  his  misfortune  the  town  talk — the  more  than  nine 
days'  wonder  and  horror — while  at  his  bosom  he  felt  the 
sickening  motion  of  a  thing  alive  and  the  gnawing  of  that 
restless  fang,  which  seemed  to  gratify  at  once  a  physical 
appetite  and  a  fiendish  spite. 


220  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

He  summoned  the  old  black  servant,  who  had  been  bred 
up  in  his  father's  house  and  was  a  middle-aged  man  while 
Koderick  lay  in  his  cradle. 

"  Scipio,"  he  began,  and  then  paused  with  his  arms 
folded  over  his  heart.  "  What  do  people  say  of  me, 
Scipio?" 

"  Sir!  my  poor  master!  that  you  had  a  serpent  in  your 
bosom,"  answered  the  servant,  with  hesitation. 

"  And  what  else?"  asked  Koderick,  with  a  ghastly  look 
at  the  man. 

"  Nothing  else,  dear  master,"  replied  Scipio;  "only  that 
the  doctor  gave  you  a  powder  and  that  the  snake  leaped 
out  upon  the  floor." 

"  No,  no  !"  muttered  Eoderick  to  himself  as  he  shook 
his  head  and  pressed  his  hands  with  a  more  convulsive 
force  upon  his  breast;  "I  feel  him  still.  It  gnaws  me  ! 
It  gnaws  me!" 

From  this  time  the  miserable  sufferer  ceased  to  shun  the 
world,  but  rather  solicited  and  forced  himself  upon  the 
notice  of  acquaintances  and  strangers.  It  was  partly  the 
result  of  desperation  on  finding  that  the  cavern  of  his  own 
bosom  had  uo«t  proved  deep  and  dark  enough  to  hide  the 
secret,  even  while  it  was  so  secure  a  fortress  for  the  loath 
some  fiend  that  had  crept  into  it.  But,  still  more,  this 
craving  for  notoriety  was  a  symptom  of  the  intense  morbid 
ness  which  now  pervaded  his  nature.  All  persons  chroni 
cally  diseased  are  egotists,  whether  the  disease  be  of  the 
mind  or  body — whether  sin,  sorrow  or  merely  the  more 
tolerable  calamity  of  some  endless  pain  or  mischief  among 
the  cords  of  mortal  life.  Such  individuals  are  made  acutely 
conscious  of  a  self  by  the  torture  in  which  it  dwells.  Self, 
therefore,  grows  to  be  so  prominent  an  object  with  them 
that  they  cannot  but  present  it  to  the  face  of  every 
casual  passer-by.  There  is  a  pleasure — perhaps  the  greatest 
of  which  the  sufferer  is  susceptible — in  displaying  the 
wasted  or  ulcerated  limb  or  the  cancer  in  the  breast;  and 
the  fouler  the  crime,  with  so  much  the  more  difficulty  does 
the  perpetrator  prevent  it  from  thrusting  up  its  snake-like 
head  to  frighten  the  world,  for  it  is  that  cancer  or  that 
crime  which  constitutes  their  respective  individuality. 
Eoderick  Elliston,  who  a  little  while  before  had  held  him 
self  so  scornfully  above  the  common  lot  of  men,  now  paid 
full  allegiance  to  this  humiliating  law.  The  snake  in  his 


EGOTISM;  OR,  THE  BOSOM-SERPENT.  221 

bosom  seemed  the  symbol  of  a  monstrous  egotism  to  which 
everything  was  referred,  and  which  he  pampered  night  and 
day  with  a  continual  and  exclusive  sacrifice  of  devil-wor 
ship. 

lie  soon  exhibited  what  most  people  considered  indubi 
table  tokens  of  insanity.  In  some  of  his  moods,  strange  to 
say,  he  prided  and  gloried  himself  on  being  marked  out 
from  the  ordinary  experience  of  mankind  by  the  possession 
of  a  double  nature  and  a  life  within  a  life.  He  appeared 
to  imagine  that  the  snake  was  a  divinity — not  celestial,  it 
is  true,  but  darkly  infernal — and  that  he  thence  derived  an 
eminence  and  a  sanctity,  horrid,  indeed,  yet  more  desirable 
than  whatever  ambition  aims  at.  Thus  he  drew  his  misery 
around  him  like  a  regal  mantle  and  looked  down  triumph 
antly  upon  those  whose  vitals  nourished  no  deadly  mon 
ster.  Oftener,  however,  his  human  nature  asserted  its  em 
pire  over  him  in  the  shape  of  a  yearning  for  fellowship.  It 
grew  to  be  his  custom  to  spend  the  whole  day  in  wandering 
about  the  streets — aimlessly  unless  it  might  be  called  an 
aim  to  establish  a  species  of  brotherhood  between  himself 
and  the  world.  With  cankered  ingenuity  he  sought  out 
his  own  disease  in  every  breast.  Whether  insane  or  not,  he 
showed  so  keen  a  perception  of  frailty,  error  and  vice  that 
many  persons  gave  him  credit  for  being  possessed  not  merely 
with  a  serpent,  but  with  an  actual  fiend  Avho  imparted  this 
evil  faculty  of  recognizing  whatever  was  ugliest  in  man's 
heart. 

For  instance,  he  met  an  individual  who  for  thirty  years 
had  cherished  a  hatred  against  his  own  brother.  Roderick, 
amid  the  throng  of  the  street,  laid  his  hand  on  this  man's 
chest,  and,  looking  full  into  his  forbidding  face,  "  How  is 
the  snake  to-day?"  he  inquired,  with  a  mock-expression  of 
sympathy. 

"  'The  snake!'"  exclaimed  the  brother-hater.  "What 
do  you  mean  ?" 

"The  snake!  The  snake!  Dees  he  gnaw  you?"  per 
sisted  Roderick.  "  Did  yon  take  counsel  with  him  this 
morning  when  you  should  have  been  saying  your  prayers? 
Did  he  sting  when  you  thought  of  your  brother's  health, 
wealth  and  good  repute?  Did  he  caper  for  joy  when  you 
remembered" the  profligacy  of  his  only  son?  And,  whether 
he  stung  or  whether  he  frolicked,  did  you  feel  his  poison 
throughout  your  body  and  soul,  converting  everything  to 


222  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

sourness  and  bitterness?  That  is  the  way  of  such  ser 
pents.  I  have  learned  the  whole  nature  of  them,  from  my 
own." 

"  Where  is  the  police?"  roared  the  object  of  Roderick's 
persecution,  at  the  same  time  giving  an  instinctive  clutch 
to  his  breast.  "  Why  is  this  lunatic  allowed  to  go  at 
large?" 

"  Ha,  ha! "  chuckled  Roderick,  releasing  his  grasp  of 
the  man.  "  His  bosom-serpent  has  stung  him,  then!  " 

Often  it  pleased  the  unfortunate  young  man  to  vex  peo 
ple  with  a  lighter  satire,  yet  still  characterized  by  some 
what  of  snake-like  virulence.  One  day  he  encountered  an 
ambitious  statesman  and  gravely  inquired  after  the  welfare 
of  his  boa-constrictor;  for  of  that  species,  Roderick 
affirmed,  this  gentleman's  serpent  must  needs  be,  since  its 
appetite  was  enormous  enough  to  devour  the  whole  coun 
try  and  constitution.  At  another  time  he  stopped  a  close- 
fisted  old  fellow  of  great  wealth,  but  who  skulked  about 
the  city  in  the  guise  of  a  scarecrow,  with  a  patched  blue 
surtout,  brown  hat  and  moldy  boots,  scraping  pence  to 
gether  and  picking  up  rusty  nails.  Pretending  to  look 
earnestly  at  this  respectable  person's  stomach,  Roderick 
assured  him  that  his  snake  was  a  copperhead  and  had  been 
generated  by  the  immense  quantities  of  that  base  metal 
with  which  he  daily  defiled  his  fingers.  Again,  he  as 
saulted  a  man  of  rubicund  visage,  and  told  him  that  few 
bosom-serpents  had  more  of  the  devil  in  them  than  those 
that  breed  in  the  vats  of  a  distillery.  The  next  whom 
Roderick  honored  with  his  attention  was  a  distinguished 
clergyman  who  happened  just  then  to  be  engaged  in  a 
theological  controversy  where  human  wrath  was  more  per 
ceptible  than  divine  inspiration. 

"  You  have  swallowed  a  snake  in  a  cup  of  sacramental 
wine,"  quoth  he. 

"  Profane  wretch! "  exclaimed  the  divine,  but,  never 
theless,  his  hand  stole  to  his  breast. 

He  met  a  person  of  sickly  sensibility  who  on  some  early 
disappointment  had  retired  from  the  world,  and,  there 
after,  held  no  intercourse  with  his  fellow-men,  but  brooded 
sullenly  or  passionately  over  the  irrevocable  past.  This 
man's  very  heart,  if  Roderick  might  be  believed,  had  been 
changed  into  a  serpent  which  would  finally  torment  both 
him  and  itself  to  death.  Observing  a  married  couple 


EGOTISM;  OR,  THE  BOSOM-SEHPENT.  223 

whose  domestic  troubles  were  matter  of  notoriety,  lie  con 
doled  with  both  on  having  mutually  taken  a  house-adder 
to  their  bosoms.  To  an  envious  author  who  deprecated 
works  which  he  could  never  equal,  he  said  that  his  snake 
was  the  slimiest  and  filthiest  of  all  the  reptile  tribe,  but 
was  fortunately  without  a  sting.  A  man  of  impure  life 
and  a  brazen  face  asking  Roderick  if  there  were  any  ser 
pent  in  his  breast,  he  told  him  that  there  was,  and  of  the 
same  species  that  once  tortured  Don  Rodrigo  the  Goth. 
He  took  a  fair  young  girl  by  the  hand,  and,  gazing  sadly 
into  her  eyes,  warned  her  that  she  cherished  a  serpent  of 
the  deadliest  kind  within  her  gentle  breast;  and  the  world 
found  the  truth  of  those  ominous  words  when,  a  few 
months  afterward,  the  poor  girl  died  of  love  and  shame. 
Two  ladies,  rivals  in  fashionable  life,  who  tormented  one 
another  with  a  thousand  little  stings  of  womanish  spite, 
were  given  to  understand  that  each  of  their  hearts  was  a 
nest  of  diminutive  snakes  which  did  quite  as  much  mis 
chief  as  one  great  one. 

But  nothing  seemed  to  please  Roderick  better  that  to 
lay  hold  of  a  person  infected  with  jealousy,  which  he 
represented  as  an  enormous  green  reptile  with  an  ice- 
cold  length  of  body  and  the  sharpest  sting  of  any  snake 
save  one. 

"  And  what  one  is  that?  "  asked  a  bystander,  overhear 
ing  him. 

It  was  a  dark-browned  man  who  put  the  question;  he  had 
an  evasive  eye  which  in  the  course  of  a  dozen  years  had 
looked  no  mortal  directly  in  the  face.  There  was  an  am 
biguity  about  this  person's  character,  a  stain  upon  his  rep 
utation,  yet  none  could  tell  precisely  of  what  nature, 
although  the  city  gossips,  male  and  female,  whispered  the 
most  atrocious  surmises.  Until  a  recent  period  he  had 
followed  the  sea,  and  was,  in  fact,  the  very  shipmaster 
whom  George  Herkimer  had  encountered  under  such  sin 
gular  circumstances  in  the  Grecian  Archipelago. 

"  What  bosom-serpent  has  the  sharpest  sting?"  repeated 
this  man,  but  he  put  the  question  as  if  by  a  reluctant 
necessity  and  grew  pale  while  he  was  uttering  it. 

"Why  need  you  ask?"  replied  Roderick,  with  a  look  of 
dark  intelligence.  "Look  into  your  own  breast.  Hark! 
my  serpent  bestirs  himself,  lie  acknowledges  the  presence 
of  a  master-fiend." 


224  X088SB  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

And  then,  as  the  bystanders  afterward  affirmed,  a  hissing 
sound  was  heard,  apparently  in  Roderick  Elliston's  breast. 
It  was  said,  too,  that  an  answering  hiss  came  from  the 
vitals  of  the  shipmaster,  as  if  a  snake  were  actually  lurking 
there  and  had  been  aroused  by  the  call  of  its  brother 
reptile.  If  there  were,  in  fact,  any  such  sound  it  might 
have  been  caused  by  a  malicious  exercise  of  ventriloquism 
on  the  part  of  Roderick. 

Thus,  making  his  own  actual  serpent — if  a  serpent  there 
actually  was  in  his  bosom — the  type  of  each  man's  fatal 
error  or  hoarded  sin  or  unquiet  conscience,  and  striking 
his  sting  so  nnremorsef  ally  into  the  sorest  spot,  we  may 
well  imagine  that  Roderich  became  the  pest  of  the  city. 
Nobody  could  elude  him;  none  could  withstand  him.  He 
grappled  with  the  ugliest  truth  that  he  could  lay  his  hand 
on,  and  compelled  his  adversary  to  do  the  same.  Strange 
spectacle  in  human  life,  where  it  is  the  instinctive  effort  of 
one  and  all  to  hide  those  sad  realities  and  leave  them  un 
disturbed  beneath  a  heap  of  superficial  topics  which  con 
stitute  the  materials  of  intercourse  between  man  and  man! 
It  was  not  to  be  tolerated  that  Roderick  Elliston  should 
break  through  the  tacit  compact  by  which  the  world  has 
done  its  best  to  secure  repose  without  relinquishing  evil. 
The  victims  of  his  malicious  remarks,  it  is  true,  had 
brothers  enough  to  keep  them  in  countenance,  for,  by  Rod 
erick's  theory,  every  mortal  bosom  harbored  either  a  brood 
of  small  serpents  or  one  overgrown  monster  that  had  de 
voured  all  the  rest.  Still,  the  city  could  not  bear  this  new 
apostle.  It  was  demanded  by  nearly  all,  and  particularly 
by  the  most  respectable  inhabitants,  that  Roderick  should 
no  longer  be  permitted  to  violate  the  received  rules  of  de 
corum  by  obtruding  his  own  bosom-serpent  to  the  public 
gaze  and  dragging  those  of  decent  people  from  their  lurk 
ing-places.  Accordingly,  his  relatives  interfered  and  placed 
him  in  a  private  asylum  for  the  insane.  When  the  news 
was  noised  abroad  it  was  observed  that  many  persons 
walked  the  streets  with  freer  countenances  and  covered 
their  breasts  less  carefully  with  their  hands. 

His  confinement,  however,  although  it  contributed  not 
a  little  to  the  peace  of  the  town,  operated  unfavorably 
upon  Roderick  himself.  In  solitude  his  melancholy  grew 
more  black  and  sullen.  He  spent  whole  days — indeed,  it  was 
his  sole  occupation — in  communing  with  the  serpent.  A 


EGOTISM;  OR,  THE  BOSOM-SERPENT.  225 

conversation  was  sustained  in  which,  as  it  seemed,  the 
hidden  monster  bore  a  part,  though  unintelligibly  to  the 
listeners  and  inaudible  except  in  a  hiss.  Singular  as  it 
may  appear,  the  sufferer  had  now  contracted  a  sort  of 
affection  for  his  tormentor,  mingled,  however,  with  the  in- 
tensest  loathing  and  horror.  Nor  were  such  discordant 
emotions  incompatible;  each,  on  the  contrary,  imparted 
strength  and  poignancy  to  its  opposite.  Horrible  love, 
horrible  antipathy,  embracing  one  another  in  his  bosom, 
and  both  concentrating  themselves  upon  a  being  that  had 
crept  into  his  vitals  or  been  engendered  there,  and  which 
was  nourished  with  his  food  and  lived  upon  his  life  and 
was  as  intimate  with  him  as  his  own  heart  and  yet  was  the 
foulest  of  all  created  things!  But  not  the  less  was  it  the 
true  type  of  a  morbid  nature. 

Sometimes,  in  his  moments  of  rage  and  bitter  hatred 
against  the  snake  and  himself,  Roderick  determined  to  be 
the  death  of  him,  even  at  the  expense  of  his  own  life. 

Once  he  attempted  it  by  starvation,  but,  while  the 
wretched  man  was  on  the  point  of  famishing,  the  monster 
seemed  to  feed  upon  his  heart  and  to  thrive  and  wax 
gamesome,  as  if  it  were  his  sweetest  and  most  congenial 
diet.  Then  he  privily  took  a  dose  of  active  poison,  im 
agining  that  it  would  not  fail  to  kill  either  himself  or  the 
devil  that  possessed  him,  or  both  together.  Another  mis 
take;  for  if  Roderick  had  not  yet  been  destroyed  by  his 
own  poisoned  heart,  nor  the  snake  by  gnawing  it,  they  had 
little  to  fear  from  arsenic  or  corrosive  sublimate.  Indeed, 
the  venomous  pest  appeared  to  operate  as  an  antidote 
against  all  other  poisons.  The  physicians  tried  to  suffo 
cate  the  fiend  with  tobacco-smoke;  he  breathed  it  as  freely 
as  if  it  were  his  native  atmosphere.  Again,  they  drugged 
their  patient  with  opium  and  drenched  him  with  intoxi 
cating  liquors,  hoping  that  the  snake  might  thus  be  re 
duced  to  stupor,  and  perhaps  be  ejected  from  the  stomach. 
They  succeeded  in  rendering  Roderick  insensible,  but, 
placing  their  hands  upon  his  breast,  they  were  inexpressi 
bly  horror-stricken  to  feel  the  monster  wriggling,  twining 
and  darting  to  and  fro  within  his  narrow  limits,  evidently 
enlivened  by  the  opium  or  alcohol  and  incited  to  unusual 
feats  of  activity.  Thenceforth  they  gave  up  all  attempts 
at  cure  or  palliation.  The  doomed  sufferer  submitted  to 
his  fate,  resumed  his  former  loathsome  affection  for  the 


226  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

bosom-fiend,  and  spent  whole  miserable  days  before  a  look 
ing-glass  with  his  mouth  wide  open,  watching,  in  hope 
and  horror,  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  snake's  head  far 
down  within  his  throat.  It  is  supposed  that  he  succeeded, 
for  the  attendants  once  heard  a  frenzied  shout,  and,  rush 
ing  into  the  room,  found  Roderick  lifeless  upon  the 
floor. 

He  was  kept  but  little  longer  under  restraint.  After 
minute  investigation  the  medical  directors  of  the  asylum 
decided  that  his  mental  disease  did  not  amount  to  insanity 
nor  would  warrant  his  confinement,  especially  as  its  in 
fluence  upon  his  spirits  was  unfavorable  and  might  produce 
the  evil  which  it  was  meant  to  remedy.  His  eccentricities 
were  doubtless  great;  he  had  habitually  violated  many  of 
the  customs  and  prejudices  of  society,  but  the  world  was 
not,  without  surer  ground,  entitled  to  treat  him  as  a  mad 
man.  On  this  decision  of  such  competent  authority 
Roderick  was  released,  and  had  returned  to  his  native 
city  the  very  day  before  his  encounter  with  George  Her- 
kimer. 

As  soon  as  possible  after  learning  these  particulars  the 
sculptor,  together  with  a  sad  and  tremulous  companion, 
sought  Elliston  at  his  own  house.  It  was  a  large,  somber 
edifice  of  wood  with  pilasters  and  a  balcony,  and  was  di 
vided  from  one  of  the  principal  streets  by  a  terrace  of  three 
elevations,  which  was  ascended  by  successive  flights  of  stone 
steps.  Some  immense  old  elms  almost  concealed  the  front 
of  the  mansion.  This  spacious  and  once  magnificent 
family  residence  was  built  by  a  grandee  of  the  race  early  in 
the  past  century,  at  which  epoch,  land  being  of  small  com 
parative  value,  the  garden  and  other  grounds  had  formed 
quite  an  extensive  domain.  Although  a  portion  of  the 
ancestral  heritage  had  been  alienated,  there  was  still  a 
shadowy  enclosure  in  the  rear  of  the  mansion  where  a 
student  or  a  dreamer  or  a  man  of  stricken  heart  might 
lie  all  day  upon  the  grass  amid  the  solitude  of  murmur 
ing  boughs  and  forgot  that  a  city  had  grown  up  around 
him. 

Into  this  retirement  the  sculptor  and  his  companion 
were  ushered  by  Scipio,  the  old  black  servant,  whose 
wrinkled  visage  grew  almost  sunny  with  intelligence  and 
joy  as  he  paid  his  humble  greetings  to  one  of  the  two 
visitors, 


EGOTISM;  OH,  THE  BOSOM-SERPENT.  227 

"  Remain  in  the  arbor,"  whispered  the  sculptor  to  the 
figure  that  leaned  upon  his  arm;  "you  will  know  whether,, 
and  when,  to  make  your  appearance." 

"  God  will  teach  me,"  was  the  reply.  "May  he  support 
me,  too!" 

Roderick  was  reclining  on  the  margin  of  a  fountain  which 
gushed  into  the  fleckered  sunshine  with  the  same  clear 
sparkle  and  the  same  voice  of  airy  quietude  as  when  trees 
of  primeval  growth  flung  their  shadows  across  its  bosom. 
How  strange  is  the  life  of  a  fountain,  born  at  every 
moment,  yet  of  an  age  coeval  with  the  rocks  and  far  sur 
passing  the  venerable  antiquity  of  a  forest. 

"  You  are  come  !  I  have  expected  you,"  said  Elliston, 
when  he  became  aware  of  the  sculptor's  presence. 

His  manner  was  very  different  from  that  of  the  preced 
ing  day — quiet,  courteous  and,  as  Ilerkimer  thought, 
watchful  both  over  his  guest  and  himself.  This  unnatural 
restraint  was  almost  the  only  trait  that  betokened  anything 
amiss.  lie  had  just  thrown  a  book  upon  the  grass,  where 
it  lay  half  opened,  thus  disclosing  itself  to  be  a  natural 
history  of  the  serpent  tribe  illustrated  by  lifelike  plates. 
Near  it  lay  that  bulky  volume  the  Dnctor  Dubititntium  of 
Jeremy  Taylor,  full  of  cases  of  conscience  and  in  which 
most  men  possessed  of  a  conscience  may  find  something 
applicable  to  their  purpose. 

"You  see,"  observed  Elliston,  pointing  to  the  book  of 
serpents,  while  a  smile  gleamed  upon  his  lips,  "  I  am  mak 
ing  an  effort  to  become  better  acquainted  with  my  bosom- 
friend.  But  I  find  nothing  satisfactory  in  this  volume.  If 
I  mistake  not,  he  will  prove  to  be  siti  generis  and  akin  to 
no  other  reptile  in  creation." 

"Whence  came  this  strange  calamity?"  inquired  the 
sculptor. 

"  My  sable  friend,  Scipio,  has  a  story,"  replied  Roder 
ick,  "of  a  snake  that  had  lurked  in  this  fountain — pure 
and  innocent  as  it  looks — ever  since  it  was  known  to  the 
first  settlers.  This  insinuating  personage  once  crept  into 
the  vitals  of  my  great  grandfather,  and  dwelt  there  many 
years,  tormenting  the  old  gentleman  beyond  mortal  endur 
ance.  In  short,  it  is  a  family  peculiarity.  But,  to  tell  the 
truth,  I  have  no  faith  in  this  idea  of  the  snake's  being  an 
heirloom!  He  is  my  own  snake  and  no  man's  else." 

"  But  what  was  his  origin?  "  demanded  Ilerkimer, 


228  M088B8  FROM  AN  OLD  MAN1SK. 

"  Oh,  tliere  is  poisonous  stuff  in  any  man's  heart  suffi 
cient  to  generate  a  brood  of  serpents,"  said  Elliston,  with 
a  hollow  laugh.  "  You  should  have  heard  my  homilies  to 
the  good  townspeople.  Positively,  I  deem  myself  fortu 
nate  iii  having  bred  but  a  single  serpent.  You,  however, 
have  none  in  your  bosom  and  therefore  cannot  sympathize 
with  the  rest  of  the  world.  It  gnaws  me  !  It  gnaws  me!" 

With  this  exclamation  Roderick  lost  his  self-control  and 
threw  himself  upon  the  grass,  testifying  his  agony  by  in 
tricate  writhings  in  which  Herkimer  could  not  but  fancy 
a  resemblance  to  the  motions  of  a  snake.  Then,  likewise, 
was  heard  that  frightful  hiss  which  often  ran  through  the 
sufferer's  speech  and  crept  between  the  words  and  syllables 
without  interrupting  their  succession. 

"  This  is  awful  indeed,"  exclaimed  the  sculptor  ;  "an 
awful  infliction,  whether  it  be  actual  or  imaginary  !  Tell 
me,  Eoderick  Elliston,  is  there  any  remedy  for  this  loath 
some  evil  ?" 

"Yes,  but  an  impossible  one,"  muttered  Roderick  as  he 
lay  wallowing  with  his  face  in  the  grass.  "  Could  I  for  one 
instant  forget  myself,  the  serpent  might  not  abide  within 
me.  It  is  my  diseased  self -contemplation  that  has  engen 
dered  and  nourished  him. 

"Then  forget  yourself,  my  husband/'  said  a  gentle  voice 
above  him — "  forget  yourself  in  the  idea.of  another." 

Rosina  had  emerged  from  the  arbor  and  was  bending 
over  him  with  the  shadow  of  his  anguish  reflected  in  her 
countenance,  yet  so  mingled  with  hope  and  unselfish  love 
that  all  anguish  seemed  but  an  earthly  shadow  and  a  dream. 
She  touched  Roderick  with  her  hand;  a  tremor  shivered 
through  his  frame.  At  that  moment,  if  report  be  trust 
worthy,  the  sculptor  beheld  a  waving  motion  through  the 
grass  and  heard  a  tinkling  sound,  as  if  something  had 
plunged  into  the  fountain.  Be  the  truth  as  it  might,  it  is 
certain  that  Roderick  Elliston  sat  up  like  a  man  renewed, 
restored  to  his  right  mind  and  rescued  from  the  fiend 
which  had  so  miserably  overcome  him  in  the  battle-field  of 
his  own  breast. 

"  Rosina,"  cried  he,  in  broken  and  passionate  tones,  but 
with  nothing  of  the  wild  wail  that  had  haunted  his  voice  so 
long,  "forgive,  forgive!" 

Her  happy  tears  bedewed  his  face. 

"  The  punishment  has  been  severe,"  observed  the  sculp- 


EGOTISM;  OR,  THE  BOSOM-SERPENT. 

tor.  "  Even  justice  might  now  forgive;  how  much  more 
u  woman's  tenderness!  Roderick  Blliston,  whether  the 
serpent  was  a  physical  reptile  or  whether  the  morbidness 
of  your  nature  suggested  that  symbol  to  your  fancy,  the 
moral  of  the  story  is  not  the  less  true  and  strong.  A 
tremendous  egotism — manifesting  itself,  in  your  case,  in 
the  form  of  jealousy — is  as  fearful  a  fiend  as  ever  stole 
into  the  human  heart.  Can  a  breast  where  it  has  dwelt 
so  long  be  purified?" 

"Oh,  yes!"  said  Rosina,  with  a  heavenly  smile.  "The 
serpent  was  but  a  dark  fantasy,  and  what  it  typified  was 
as  shadowy  as  itself.  The  past,  dismal  as  it  seems,  shall 
fling  no  gloom  upon  the  future.  To  give  it  its  due  im 
portance,  we  must  think  of  it  but  as  an  anecdote  in  our 
eternity/' 


230  MOSSES  FliOM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 


THE  CHRISTMAS  BANQUET. 

FROM    THE   UNPUBLISHED    "ALLEGORIES    OF 
THE  HEART." 


"  I  HAVE  here  attempted,"  said  Roderick,  unfolding  a 
few  sheets  of  manuscript,  as  he  sat  with  Rosina  and  the 
sculptor  in  the  summer-house;  "  I  have  attempted  to  seize 
hold  of  a  personage  who  glides  past  me  occasionally  in  my 
walk  through  life.  My  former  sad  experience,  as  you  know, 
has  gifted  me  with  some  degree  of  insight  into  the  gloomy 
mysteries  of  the  human  heart,  through  which  I  have  wan 
dered  like  one  astray  in  a  dark  cavern  with  his  torch  fast 
flickering  to  extinction.  But  this  man — this  class  of  men 
— is  a  hopeless  puzzle." 

"  Well,  but  propound  him,"  said  the  sculptor.  "  Let 
us  have  an  idea  of  him,  to  begin  with." 

"  Why,  indeed,"  replied  Roderick,  "  he  is  such  a  being 
as  I  could  conceive  you  to  carve  out  of  marble,  and  some 
yet  unrealized  perfection  of  human  science  to  endow  with 
an  exquisite  mockery  of  intellect;  but  still  there  lacks  the 
last  inestimable  touch  of  a  divine  Creator.  He  looks  like 
a  man,  and  perchance  like  a  better  specimen  of  man  than 
you  ordinarily  meet.  You  might  esteem  him  wise — he  is 
capable  of  cultivation  and  refinement,  and  has  at  least  an 
external  conscience — but  the  demands  that  spirit  makes 
upon  spirit  are  precisely  those  to  which  he  cannot  respond. 
When,  at  last,  you  come  close  to  him,  you  find  him  chill 
and  unsubstantial — a  mere  vapor." 

"I  believe,"  said  Rosina,  "  I  have  a  glimmering  idea  of 
what  you  mean." 

"  Then  be  thankful,"  answered  her  husband,  smiling, 
"  but  do  not  anticipate  any  further  illumination  from  what 


THE  CHRISTMAS  BANQUET.  231 

I  am  about  to  road.  I  have  here  imagined  such  a  man  to 
be — what,  probably,  he  never  is — conscious  of  the  deficiency 
in  his  spiritual  organization.  Methinks  the  result  would 
be  a  sense  of  cold  unreality  wherewith  he  would  go  shiver 
ing  through  the  world,  longing  to  exchange  his  load  of  ice 
for  any  burden  of  real  grief  that  fate  could  fling  upon  a 
human  being." 

Contenting  himself  with  this  preface  Roderick  began  to 
read. 

"In  a  certain  old  gentleman's  last  will  and  testament  there 
appeared  a  bequest  which,  as  his  final  thought  and  deed, 
was  singularly  in  keeping  with  a  long  life  of  melancholy 
and  eccentricity.  He  devised  a  considerable  sum  for  estab 
lishing  a  fund  the  interest  of  which  was  to  be  expended 
annually  forever  in  preparing  a  Christian  banquet  for  ten 
of  the  most  miserable  persons  that  could  be  found.  It 
seemed  not  to  be  the  testator's  purpose  to  make  these  half 
a  score  of  sad  hearts  merry,  but  to  provide  that  the  stern 
or  fierce  expression  of  human  discontent  should  not  be 
drowned,  even  for  that  one  holy  and  joyful  day,  amid  the 
acclamations  of  festal  gratitude  which  all  Christendom 
sends  up.  And  he  desired,  likewise,  to  perpetuate  his  own 
remonstrance  against  the  earthly  course  of  Providence  and 
his  sad  and  sour  dissent  from  those  systems  of  religion  or 
philosophy  which  either  find  sunshine  in  the  world  or  draw 
it  down  from  heaven. 

"  The  task  of  inviting  the  guests  or  of  selecting  among 
such  as  might  advance  their  claims  to  partake  of  this  dis 
mal  hospitality  was  confided  to  the  two  trustees,  or  stew 
ards,  of  the  fund.  These  gentlemen,  like  their  deceased 
friend,  were  somber  humorists  who  made  it  their  principal 
occupation  to  number  the  sable  threads  in  the  web  of 
human  life  and  drop  all  the  golden  ones  out  of  the  reckon 
ing.  They  performed  their  present  office  with  integrity 
and  judgment.  The  aspect  of  the  assembled  company  on 
the  day  of  the  first  festival  might  not,  itistrue,  have  satisfied 
every  beholder  that  these  were  especially  the  individuals, 
chosen  forth  from  all  the  world,  whose  griefs  were  worthy 
to  stand  as  indicators  of  the  mass  of  human  suffering. 
Yet,  after  due  consideration,  it  could  not  be  disputed  that 
here  was  a  variety  of  hopeless  discomforts  which,  if  it  some 
times  arose  from  causes  apparently  inadequate,  was  thereby 


232  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

only  the  shrewder  imputation  against  the  nature  and 
mechanism  of  life. 

"  The  arrangements  and  decorations  of  the  banquet  were 
probably  intended  to  signify  that  death  ill  life  which  had 
been  the  testator's  definition  of  existence.  The  hall,  illu 
minated  by  torches,  was  hung  round  with  curtains  of  deep 
and  dusky  purple  and  adorned  with  branches  of  cypress 
and  wreaths  of  artificial  flowers  imitative  of  such  as  used 
to  be  strewn  over  the  dead.  A  sprig  of  parsley  was  laid 
by  every  plate.  The  main  reservoir  of  wine  was  a  sepul 
chral  urn  of  silver,  whence  the  liquor  was  distributed 
around  the  table  in  small  vases  accurately  copied  from 
those  that  held  the  tears  of  ancient  mourners.  Neither  had 
the  stewards — if  it  were  their  taste  that  arranged  these  de 
tails — forgotten  the  fantasy  of  the  old  Egyptians,  who  seated 
a  skeleton  at  every  festive  board  and  mocked  their  own 
merriment  with  the  imperturbable  grin  of  a  death's  head. 
Such  a  fearful  guest,  shrouded  in  a  black  mantle,  sat  now 
at  the  head  of  the  table.  It  was  whispered — I  know  not 
with  what  truth — that  the  testator  himself  had  once  walked 
the  visible  world  with  the  machinery  of  that  same  skeleton, 
and  that  it  was  one  of  the  stipulations  of  his  will  that  he 
should  thus  be  permitted  to  sit,  from  year  to  year,  at 
the  banquet  which  he  had  instituted.  If  so,  it  was  per 
haps  covertly  implied  that  he  had  cherished  no  hopes  of 
bliss  beyond  the  grave  to  compensate  for  the  evils  which 
he  felt  or  imagined  here.  And  if,  in  their  bewildered  con 
jectures  as  to  the  purpose  of  earthly  existence,  the  ban 
queters  should  throw  aside  the  veil  and  cast  an  inquiring 
glance  at  this  figure  of  Death,  as  -seeking  thence  the  solu 
tion  otherwise  unattainable,  the  only  reply  would  be  a 
stare  of  the  vacant  eye-caverns  and  a  grin  of  the  skeleton 
jaws.  Such  was  the  response  that  the  dead  man  had  fan 
cied  himself  to  receive  when  he  asked  of  Death  to  solve 
the  riddle  of  his  life,  and  it  was  his  desire  to  repeat  it 
when  the  guests  of  his  dismal  hospitality  should  find  them 
selves  perplexed  with  the  same  question. 

"  l  What  means  that  wreath?'  asked  several  of  the  com 
pany  while  viewing  the  decorations  of  the  table.  They 
alluded  to  a  wreath  of  cypress  which  was  held  on  high  by 
a  skeleton  arm  protruding  from  within  the  black  mantle. 

"  i  It  is  a  crown/  said  one  of  the  stewards,  '  not  for  the 
worthiest,  but  for  the  wofulest  when,  he  shall  prove  his 
claim  to  it,' 


THE  CHRISTMAS  BANQUET.  233 

"  The  guest  earliest  bidden  to  the  festival  was  a  man  of 
soft  and  gentle  character  who  had  not  energy  to  struggle 
against  the  heavy  despondency  to  which  his  temperament 
rendered  him  liable,  and  therefore,  with  nothing  outwardly 
to  excuse  him  from  happiness,  he  had  spent  a  life  of  quiet 
misery  that  made  his  blood  torpid,  and  weighed  upon  his 
breath,  and  sat  like  a  ponderous  night-fiend  upon  every 
throb  of  his  unresisting  heart;  his  wretchedness  seemed  as 
deep  as  his  original  nature,  if  not  identical  with  it.  It  was 
the  misfortune  of  a  second  guest  to  cherish  within  his 
bosom  a  diseased  heart  which  had  become  so  wretchedly 
sore  that  the  continual  and  unavoidable  rubs  of  the  world, 
the  blow  of  an  enemy,  the  careless  jostle  of  a  stranger,  and 
even  the  faithful  and  loving  touch  of  a  friend,  alike  made 
ulcers  in  it;  as  is  the  habit  of  people  thus  afflicted,  he  found 
his  chief  employment  in  exhibiting  these  miserable  sores  to 
any  who  would  give  themselves  the  pain  of  viewing  them. 
A  third  guest  was  a  hypochondriac  whose  imagination 
wrought  necromancy  in  his  outward  and  inward  world, 
and  caused  him  to  see  monstrous  faces  in  the  household 
fire,  and  dragons  in  the  clouds  of  sunset,  and  fiends  in  the 
guise  of  beautiful  women,  and  something  ugly  or  wicked 
beneath  all  the  pleasant  surfaces  of  nature.  His  neighbor 
at  table  was  one  who  in  his  early  youth  had  trusted  man 
kind  too  much  and  hoped  too  highly  in  their  behalf, 
and,  meeting  with  many  disappointments,  had  become 
desperately  soured;  for  several  years  back  this  misanthrope 
had  employed  himself  in  accumulating  motives  for 
hating  and  despising  his  race,  such  as  murder,  lust, 
treachery,  ingratitude,  faithlessness  of  trusted  friends,  in 
stinctive  vices  of  children,  impurity  of  women,  hidden 
guilt  in  men  of  saintlike  aspect,  and,  in  short,  all  manner 
of  black  realities  that  sought  to  decorate  themselves  with 
outward  grace  or  glory.  But  at  every  atrocious  fact  that 
was  added  to  his  catalogue — at  every  increase  of  the  sad 
knowledge  which  he  spent  his  life  to  collect — the  native 
impulses  of  the  poor  man's  loving  and  confiding  heart 
made  him  groan  with  anguish.  Next,  with  his  heavy  brow 
bent  downward,  there  stole  into  the  hall  a  man  naturally 
earnest  and  impassioned  who  from  his  immemorial  infancy 
had  felt  the  consciousness  of  a  high  message  to  the  world, 
but,  essaying  to  deliver  it,  had  found  either  no  voice  or 
form  of  speech,  or  else  no  ears  to  listen;  therefore  his  whole 


234  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

life  was  a  bitter  questioning  of  himself:  'Why  have  not 
men  acknowledged  my  mission?  Arn  I  not  a  self-deluding 
fool?  AVhat  business  have  I  on  earth?  Where  is  my 
grave  ?'  Throughout  the  festival  he  quaffed  frequent 
draughts  from  the  sepulchral  urn  of  wine,  hoping  thus  to 
quench  the  celestial  fire  that  tortured  his  own  breast  and 
could  not  benefit  his  race.  Then  there  entered,  having 
flung  away  a  ticket  for  a  ball,  a  gay  gallant  of  yesterday 
who  had  found  four  or  five  wrinkles  in  his  brow,  and  more 
gray  hairs  than  he  could  well  number  on  his  head.  En 
dowed  with  sense  and  feeling,  he  had  nevertheless  spent 
his  youth  in  folly,  but  had  readied  at  last  that  dreary  point 
in  life  where  Folly  quits  us  of  her  own  accord,  leaving  us 
to  make  friends  with  Wisdom  if  we  can.  Thus,  cold  and 
desolute,  he  had  come  to  seek  Wisdom  at  the  banquet,  and 
wondered  if  the  skeleton  was  she.  To  eke  out  the  com 
pany,  the  stewards  had  invited  a  distressed  poet  from  his 
home  in  the  almshouse  and  a  melancholy  idiot  from  the 
street-corner.  The  latter  had  just  the  glimmering  of  sense 
that  was  sufficient  to  make  him  conscious  of  a  vacancy 
which  the  poor  fellow  all  his  life  long  had  mistily  sought 
to  fill  up  with  intelligence,  wandering  up  and  down  the 
streets  and  groaning  miserably  because  his  attempts  were 
ineffectual.  The  only  lady  in  the  hall  was  one  who  had 
fallen  short  of  absolute  and  perfect  beauty  merely  by  the 
trifling  defect  of  a  slight  cast  in  her  left  eye;  but  this  blem 
ish  minute  as  it  was,  so  shocked  the  pure  ideal  of  her  soul, 
rather  than  her  vanity,  that  she  passed  her  life  in  solitude 
and  veiled  her  countenance  even  from  her  own  gaze.  So 
the  skeleton  sat  shrouded  at  one  end  of  the  table,  and  this 
poor  lady  at  the  other. 

"One  other  guest  remains  to  be  described.  He  was  a  young 
man  of  smooth  brow,  fair  cheek  and  fashionable  mien.  So 
far  as  his  exterior  developed  him,  he  might  much  more  suit 
ably  have  found  a  place  at  some  merry  Christmas  table  than 
have  been  numbered  among  the  blighted  fate-stricken, 
fancy-tortured  set  of  ill-starred  banqueters.  Murmurs  arose 
among  the  guests  as  they  noted  the  glance  of  general 
scrutiny  which  the  intruder  threw  over  his  companions. 
What  had  he  to  do  among  them?  Why  did  not  the  skel 
eton  of  the  dead  founder  of  the  feast  unbend  its  rattling 
joints,  arise  and  motion  the  unwelcome  stranger  from  the 
board? 


THE  CHRISTMAS  BANQUET.  235 

" '  Shameful!'  said  the  morbid  man,  while  a  new  ulcer 
broke  out  in  his  heart.  '  He  comes  to  mock  us;  we  shall 
be  the  jest  of  his  tavern  friends.  He  will  make  a  farce  of 
our  miseries  and  bring  it  out  upon  the  stage.' 

ft '  Oh,  never  mind  him/  said  the  hypochondriac,  smiling 
sourly.  '  He  shall  feast  from  yonder  tureen  of  viper-soup; 
and  if  there  is  a  fricassee  of  scorpions  on  the  table,  pray  let 
him  have  his  share  of  it.  For  the  dessert  he  shall  taste 
the  apples  of  Sodom.  Then,  if  he  like  our  Christmas  fare, 
let  him  return  again  next  year.7 

"  '  Trouble  him  not/  murmured  the  melancholy  man, 
with  gentleness.  '  What  matters  it  whether  the  conscious 
ness  of  misery  come  a  few  years  sooner  or  later?  If  this 
youth  deem  himself  happy  now,  yet  let  him  sit  with  us,  for 
the  sake  of  the  wretchedness  to  come/ 

"  The  poor  idiot  approached  the  young  man  with  that 
mournful  aspect  of  vacant  inquiry  which  his  face  continu 
ally  wore,  and  which  caused  people  to  say  that  he  was 
always  in  search  of  his  missing  wits.  After  no  little  exam 
ination  he  touched  the  stranger's  hand,  but  immediately 
drew  back  his  own,  shaking  his  head  and  shivering. 

"'Cold!  cold!  cold!'  muttered  the  idiot. 

"  The  young  man  shivered  too,  and  smiled. 

"  '  Gentlemen — and  you,  madam/ said  one  of  the  stewards 
of  the  festival — '  do  not  conceive  so  ill  either  of  our  caution 
or  judgment  as  to  imagine  that  we  have  admitted  this 
young  stranger — Gervayse  Hastings  by  name — without  a 
full  investigation  and  thoughtful  balance  of  his  claims. 
Trust  me,  not  a  guest  at  the  table  is  better  entitled  to  his 
seat/ 

"  The  steward's  guaranty  was  perforce  satisfactory.  The 
company,  therefore,  took  their  places  and  addressed  them 
selves  to  the  serious  business  of  the  feast,  but  were  soon  dis 
turbed  by  the  hypochondriac,  who  thrust  back  his  chair, 
complaining  that  a  dish  of  stewed  toads  and  vipers  was  set 
before  him,  and  that  there  was  green  ditch-water  in  his  cup 
of  wine.  This  mistake  being  amended,  he  quietly  resumed 
his  seat.  The  wine,  as  it  flowed  freely  from  the  sepulchral 
urn,  seemed  to  come  imbued  with  all  gloomy  inspirations; 
so  that  its  influence  was  not  to  cheer,  but  either  to  sink  the 
revelers  into  a  deeper  melancholly  or  elevate  their  spirits 
to  an  enthusiasm  of  wretchedness.  The  conversation  was 
various.  They  told  sad  stories  about  people  who  might 


236  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

have  been  worthy  guests  at  such  a  festival  as  the  present. 
They  talked  of  grizzly  incidents  in  human  history — of  strange 
crimes  which,  if  truly  considered,  were  but  convulsions  of 
agony;  of  some  lives  that  had  been  altogether  wretched, 
and  of  others  which,  wearing  a  general  semblance  of  happi 
ness,  had  yet  been  deformed  sooner  or  later  by  misfortune 
as  by  the  intrusion  of  a  grim  face  at  a  banquet;  of  death 
bed  scenes  and  what  dark  intimations  might  be  gathered 
from  the  words  of  dying  men;  of  suicide,  and  whether  the 
more  eligible  mode  were  by  halter,  knife,  poison,  drowning, 
gradual  starvation,  or  the  fumes  of  charcoal.  The  majority 
of  the  guests,  as  is  the  custom  with  people  thoroughly  and 
profoundly  sick  at  heart,  were  anxious  to  make  their  own 
woes  the  theme  of  discussion  and  prove  themselves  most 
excellent  in  anguish.  The  misanthropist  went  deep  into 
the  philosophy  of  evil,  and  wandered  about  in  the  darkness 
with  now  and  then  a  gleam  of  discolored  light  hovering  on 
ghastly  shapes  and  horrid  scenery.  Many  a  miserable 
thought  such  as  men  have  stumbled  upon  from  age  to  age 
did  he  now  rake  up  again,  and  gloat  over  it  as  an  ines 
timable  gem,  a  diamond,  a  treasure  far  preferable  to  those 
bright,  spiritual  revelations  of  a  better  world  which  are  like 
precious  stones  from  heaven's  pavement.  And  then,  amid 
his  lore  of  wretchedness,  he  hid  his  face  and  wept. 

"  It  was  a  festival  at  which  the  wof ul  man  of  Uz  might 
suitably  have  been  a  guest,  together  with  all  in  each  suc 
ceeding  age  who  have  tasted  deepest  of  the  bitterness  of 
life.  And  be  it  said,  too,  that  every  son  or  daughter  of 
woman,  however  favored  with  happy  fortune,  might  at  one 
sad  moment  or  another  have  claimed  the  privilege  of  a 
stricken  heart  to  sit  down  at  this  table.  But  throughout 
the  feast  it  was  remarkable  that  the  young  stranger,  Ger- 
vayse  Hastings,  was  unsuccessful  in  his  attempts  to  catch  its 
pervading  spirit.  At  any  deep,  strong  thought  that  found 
utterance,  and  which  was  torn  out,  as  it  were,  from  the  sad 
dest  recesses  of  human  consciousness,  he  looked  mystified 
and  bewildered — even  more  than  the  poor  idiot,  who  seem 
ed  to  grasp  at  such  things  with  his  earnest  heart,  and  thus 
occasionally  to  comprehend  them.  The  young  man's  con 
versation  was  of  a  colder  and  lighter  kind,  often  brilliant, 
but  lacking  the  powerful  characteristics  of  a  nature  that 
had  been  developed  by  suffering. 

"  SSir/  said  the  misanthropist,  bluntly,  in  reply  to  some 


T1IK  CIltilSTMAS  BANQUET. 

observation  by  Gervayse  Hastings,  'pray  do  not  address 
me  again.  AVe  have  no  right  to  talk  together;  our  minds 
have  nothing  in  common.  By  what  claim  you  appear  at 
this  banquet  I  cannot  guess,  but  methinks,  to  a  man  who 
could  say  what  you  have  just  now  said,  my  companions 
and  myself  must  seem  no  more  than  shadows  flickering 
on  the  wall.  And  precisely  such  a  shadow  are  you  to  us/ 

"  The  young  man  smiled  and  bowed,  but,  drawing  himself 
back  in  his  chair,  he  buttoned  his  coat  over  his  breast,  as 
if  the  banqueting-hall  were  growing  chill.  Again  the  idiot 
fixed  his  melancholy  stare  upon  the  youth  and  murmured, 
'Cold!  cold!  cold!' 

"  The  banquet  drew  to  its  conclusion,  and  the  guests  de 
parted.  Scarcely  had  they  stepped  across  the  threshold  of 
the  hall,  when  the  scene  that  had  there  passed  seemed  like 
the  vision  of  a  sick  fancy  or  an  exhalation  from  a  stagnant 
heart.  Now  and  then,  however,  during  the  year  that  en 
sued,  these  melancholy  people  caught  glimpses  of  one  an 
other — transient,  indeed,  but  enough  to  prove  that  they 
walked  the  earth  with  the  ordinary  allotment  of  reality. 
Sometimes  a  pair  of  them  came  face  to  face  while  stealing 
through  the  evening  twilight  enveloped  in  their  sable  cloaks. 
Sometimes  they  casually  met  in  church-yards.  Once,  also, 
it  happened  that  two  of  the  dismal  banqueters  mutually 
started*  at  recognizing  each  other  in  the  noonday  sunshine 
of  a  crowded  street,  stalking  there  like  ghosts  astray. 
Doubtless  they  wondered  why  the  skeleton  did  not  come 
abroad  at  noonday,  too. 

"But,  whenever  the  necessity  of  their  affairs  compelled 
these  Christinas  guests  into  the  bustling  world,  they  were 
sure  to  encounter  the  young  man  who  had  so  unaccount 
ably  been  admitted  to  the  festival.  They  saw  him  among 
the  gay  and  fortunate,  they  caught  the  sunny  sparkle  of 
his  eye,  they  heard  the  light  and  careless  tones  of  his  voice, 
and  muttered  to  themselves  with  such  indignation  as  only 
the  aristocracy  of  wretchedness  could  kindle  :  '  The  traitor! 
The  vile  impostor  !  Providence  in  its  own  good  time  may 
give  him  a  right  to  feast  among  us."  But  the  young  man's 
unabashed  eye  dwelt  upon  their  gloomy  figures  as  they 
passed  him,  seeming  to  say,  perchance  with  somewhat  of  a 
sneer.  '  First  know  my  secret,  then  measure  your  claims 
with  mine.' 

''The  step  of  time  stole  onward,  and  soon  brought  merry 


238  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSfl. 

Christmas  round  again,  with  glad  and  solemn  worship  in 
the  churches,  and  sports,  games,  festivals,  and  everywhere 
the  bright  face  of  Joy  beside  the  household  fire.  Again, 
likewise,  the  hall,  with  its  curtains  of  dusky  purple,  was 
illuminated  by  the  death-torches  gleaming  on  the  sepulchral 
decorations  of  the  banquet.  The  veiled  skeleton  sat  in 
state,  lifting  the  cypress-wreath  above  its  head  as  the 
guerdon  of  some  guest  illustrious  in  the  qualifications  which 
there  claimed  precedence.  As  the  stewards  deemed  the 
world  inexhaustible  in  misery  and  were  desirous  of  recogniz 
ing  it  in  all  its  forms,  they  have  not  seen  fit  to  reassemble 
the  company  of  the  former  year.  New  faces  now  threw 
their  gloom  across  the  table. 

"  There  was  a  man  of  nice  conscience  who  bore  a  blood 
stain  in  his  heart — the  death  of  a  fellow-creature — which 
for  his  more  exquisite  torture  had  chanced  with  such  a 
peculiarity  of  circumstances  that  he  could  not  absolutely 
determine  whether  his  will  had  entered  into  the  deed  or 
not.  Therefore  his  whole  life  was  spent  in  the  agony  of  an 
inward  trial  for  murder,  with  a  continual  sifting  of  the 
details  of  his  terrible  calamity,  until  his  mind  had  no 
longer  any  thought  nor  his  soul  any  emotion  disconnected 
with  it.  There  was  a  mother,  too — a  mother  once,  but  a 
desolation  now — AV!IO  many  years  before  had  gone  out  on  a 
pleasure-party,  and,  returning,  found  her  infant  smothered 
in  its  little  bed,  and  ever  since  she  has  been  tortured  with 
the  fantasy  that  her  buried  baby  lay  smothering  in  its 
coffin.  Then  there  was  an  aged  lady  who  had  lived  from 
time  immemorial  with  a  constant  tremor  quivering  through 
her  frame.  It  was  terrible  to  discern  her  dark  shadow 
tremulous  upon  the  wall.  Her  lips,  likewise,  were  tremu 
lous,  and  the  expression  of  her  eye  seemed  to  indicate  that 
her  soul  was  trembling  too.  Owing  to  the  bewilderment 
and  confusion  which  made  almost  a  chaos  of  her  intellect, 
it  was  impossible  to  discover  what  dire  misfortune  had  thus 
shaken  her  nature  to  its  depths  ;  so  that  the  stewards  had 
admitted  her  to  the  table,  not  from  any  acquaintance  with 
her  history,  but  on  the  safe  testimony  of  her  miserable  as 
pect.  Some  surprise  was  expressed  at  the  presence  of  a 
bluff,  red-faced  gentleman,  a  certain  Mr.  Smith,  who  had 
evidently  the  fat  of  many  a  rich  feast  within  him,  and  the 
habitual  twinkle  of  whose  eye  betrayed  a  disposition  to 
break  forth  into  uproarious  laughter  for  little  cause,  or 


THE  CHRISTMAS  BANQ  UET.  239 

none.  It  turned  out,  however,  that  with  the  best  possible 
flow  of  spirits  our  poor  friend  was  afflicted  with  a  physical 
disease  of  the  heart  which  threatened  instant  death  on  the 
slightest  cachinnatory  indulgence,  or  even  that  titillation 
of  the  bodily  frame  produced  by  merry  thoughts.  In  this 
dilemma  he  had  sought  admittance  to  the  banquet  on  the 
ostensible  plea  of  his  irksome  and  miserable  state,  but,  in 
reality,  with  the  hope  of  imbibing  a  life-preserving  melan 
choly. 

"A  married  couple  had  been  invited  from  a  motive  of  bit 
ter  humor,  it  being  well  understood  that  they  rendered 
each  other  unutterably  miserable  whenever  they  chanced  to 
meet,  and  therefore  must  necessarily  be  fit  associates  at  the 
festival.  In  contrast  with  these  was  another  couple,  still 
unmarried,  who  had  interchanged  their  hearts  in  early  life, 
but  had  been  divided  by  circumstances  as  impalpable  as 
morning  mist,  and  kept  apart  so  long  that  their  spirits  now 
found  it  impossible  to  meet.  Therefore,  yearning  for  com 
munion,  yet  shrinking  from  one  another,  and  choosing 
none  besides,  they  felt  themselves  companionless  in  life 
and  looked  upon  eternity  as  a  boundless  desert.  Next  to 
the  skeleton  sat  a  mere  son  of  earth — a  hunter  of  the 
Exchange,  a  gatherer  of  shining  dust,  a  man  whose  life's 
record  was  in  his  ledger,  and  whose  soul's  prison-house 
the  vaults  of  the  bank  where  he  kept  his  deposits.  This 
person  had  been  greatly  perplexed  at  his  invitation,  deem 
ing  himself  one  of  the  most  fortunate  men  in  the  city; 
but  the  stewards  persisted  in  demanding  his  presence,  as 
suring  him  that  he  had  no  conception  how  miserable  ho 
was. 

"And  now  appeared  a  figure  which  we  must  acknowledge 
as  our  acquaintance  of  the  former  festival.  It  was  Ger- 
vayse  Hastings,  whose  presence  had  then  caused  so  much 
question  and  criticism,  and  who  now  took  his  place  with 
the  composure  of  one  whose  claims  were  satisfactory  to 
himself  and  must  needs  be  allowed  by  others.  Yet  his 
easy  and  unruffled  face  betrayed  no  sorrow.  The  well- 
skilled  beholders  gazed  a  moment  into  his  eyes  and  shook 
their  heads  to  miss  the  unnttered  sympathy — the  counter 
sign,  never  to  be  falsified,  of  those  whose  hearts  are  cavern- 
mouths  through  which  they  descend  into  a  region  of 
illimitable  woe  and  recognize  other  wanderers  there. 

"  '  Who  is  this  youth?'  asked  the  man  with  a  blood-stain 


240  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

on  his  conscience.  '  Surely  lie  has  never  gone  down  into 
the  depths?  I  know  all  the  aspects  of  those  who  have 
passed  through  the  dark  valley.  By  what  right  is  he 
among  us?' 

"  i  Ah!  it  is  a  sinful  thing  to  come  hither  without  a  sor 
row/  murmured  the  aged  lady,  in  accents  that  partook  of 
the  eternal  tremor  which  pervaded  her  whole  being.  "  De 
part,  young  man!  Your  soul  has  never  been  shaken,  and 
therefore  I  tremble  so  much  the  more  to  look  at  you/ 

(f '  His.  soul  shaken!  No;  Fll  answer  for  it/  said  bluff 
Mr.  Smith,  pressing  his  hand  upon  his  heart  and  making 
himself  as  melancholy  as  he  could,  for  fear  of  a  fatal  ex 
plosion  of  laughter.  *I  know  the  lad  well;  he  has  as  fair 
prospects  as  any  young  man  about  town,  and  has  no  more 
right  among  us  miserable  creatures  than  the  child  un 
born.  He  never  was  miserable,  and  probably  never  will 
be/ 

"' Our  honored  guests/  interposed  the  stewards,  'pray 
have  patience  with  us,  and  believe,  at  least,  that  our  deep 
veneration  for  the  sacredness  of  this  solemnity  would  pre 
clude  any  willful  violation  of  it.  Receive  this  young  man 
to  your  table.  It  may  not  be  too  much  to  say  that  no  guest 
here  would  exchange  his  own  heart  for  the  one  that  beats 
within  that  youthful  bosom/ 

"  'I'd  call  it  a  bargain,  and  gladly,  too/  muttered  Mr. 
Smith,  with  a  perplexing  mixture  of  sadness  and  mirthful 
conceit.  '  A  plague  upon  their  nonsense!  My  own  heart 
is  the  only  really  miserable  one  in  the  company.  It  will 
certainly  be  the  death  of  me  at  last/ 

"Nevertheless,  as  on  the  former  occasion,  the  judgment 
of  the  stewards  being  without  appeal,  the  company  sat 
down.  The  obnoxious  guest  made  no  more  attempt  to 
obtrude  his  conversation  on  those  about  him,  but  appeared 
to  listen  to  the  table-talk  with  peculiar  assiduity,  as  if  some 
inestimable  secret,  otherwise  beyond  his  reach,  might  be  con 
veyed  in  a  casual  word.  And,  in  truth,  to  those  who  could 
understand  and  value  it,  there  was  rich  matter  in  the  upgush- 
ings  and  outpourings  of  these  initiated  souls  to  whom  sorrow 
had  been  a  talisman  admitting  them  into  spiritual  depths 
which  no  other  spell  can  open.  Sometimes  out  of  the  midst 
of  densest  gloom  there  flashed  a  momentary  radiance  pure 
as  crystal,  bright  as  the  flame  of  stars  and  shedding  such 
a  glow  upon  the  mysteries  of  life  that  the  guests  were  ready 


THE  VHRISTMAS  BANQUET.  241 

to  exclaim:  'Surely  the  riddle  is  on  the  point  of  being 
solved! '  At  such  illuminated  intervals  the  saddest  mourn 
ers  felt  it  to  be  revealed  that  mortal  griefs  are  but  shadowy 
and  external — no  more  than  the  sable  robes  voluminously 
shrouding  a  certain  divine  reality,  and  thus  indicating 
what  might  otherwise  be  altogether  invisible  to  mortal  eye. 

"  * "Just  now/  remarked  the  trembling  old  woman,,  'I 
seemed  to  see  beyond  the  outside,  and  then  my  everlasting 
tremor  passed  away/ 

"  '  Would  that  I  could  dwell  always  in  these  momentary 
gleams  of  light!7  said  the  man  of  stricken  conscience. 
*'  Then  the  blood-stain  in  my  heart  would  be  washed  clean 
away/ 

"This  strain  of  conversation  appeared  so  unintelligibly 
absurd  to  good  Mr.  Smith  that  he  burst  into  precisely  the 
tit  of  laughter  which  his  physicians  had  warned  him  against 
as  likely  to  prove  instantaneously  fatal.  In  effect,  he  fell 
back  in  his  chair  a  corpse  with  a  broad  grin  upon  his  face, 
while  his  ghost,  perchance,  remained  beside  it,  bewildered 
at  its  unpremeditated  exit.  This  catastrophe,  of  course, 
broke  up  the  festival. 

"  '  How  is  this?  You  do  not  tremble/  observed  the  trem 
ulous  old  woman  to  Uervayse  Hastings,  who  was  gazing  at 
the  dead  man  with  singular  intentness.  '  Is  it  iiot  awful 
to  see  him  so  suddenly  vanish  out  of  the  midst  of  life — this 
man  of  flesh  and  blood  whose  earthly  nature  was  so  warm 
and  strong?  There  is  a  never-ending  tremor  in  my  soul, 
but  it  trembles  afresh  at  this.  And  you  are  calm!' 

"'Would  that  he  could  teach  me  somewhat!'  said  Ger- 
vayse  Hastings,  drawing  a  long  breath.  '  Men  pass  before 
me  like  shadows  on  the  wall;  their  actions,  passions,  feel 
ings,  are  flickerings  of  the  light,  and  then  they  vanish! 
Neither  the  corpse  nor  yonder  skeleton  nor  this  old 
woman's  everlasting  tremor  can  give  me  what  I  seek/ 

"And  then  the  company  departed. 

"  We  cannot  linger  to  narrate  in  such  detail  more  circum 
stances  of  these  singular  festivals,  which,  in  accordance 
with  the  founder's  will,  continued  to  be  kept  with  the 
regularity  of  an  established  institution.  In  process  of  time 
the  stewards  adopted  the  custom  of  inviting  from  far  and 
near  those  individuals  whose  misfortunes  were  prominent 
above  other  men's,  and  whose  mental  and  moral  develop 
ment  might,  therefore,  be  supposed  to  possess  a  correspond- 


242  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

ing  interest.  The  exiled  noble  of  the  French  Revolution 
and  the  broken  soldier  of  the  Empire  were  alike  repre 
sented  at  the  table.  Fallen  monarchs  wandering  about  the 
earth  have  found  places  at  that  forlorn  and  -miserable 
feast.  The  statesman,  when  his  party  flung  him  off, 
might,  if  he  chose  it,  be  once  more  a  great  man  for  the 
space  of  a  single  banquet.  Aaron  Burr's  name  appears  on 
the  record  at  a  period  when  his  ruin — the  profoundest  and 
most  striking,  with  more  of  moral  circumstance  in  it  than 
that  of  almost  any  other  man — was  complete,  in  his  lonely 
age.  Stephen  Girard,  when  his  wealth  weighed  upon  him 
like  a  mountain,  once  sought  admittance  of  his  own  accord. 
It  is  not  probable,  however,  that  these  men  had  any  lesson 
to  teach  in  the  lore  of  discontent  and  misery  which  might 
not  equally  well  have  been  studied  in  the  common  walks  of 
life.  Illustrious  unfortunates  attract  a  wider  sympathy, 
not  because  their  griefs  are  more  intense,  but  because, 
being  set  on  lofty  pedestals,  they  the  better  serve  mankind 
as  instances  and  by-words  of  calamity. 

"  It  concerns  our  present  purpose  to  say  that  at  each  suc 
cessive  festival  Gervayse  Hastings  showed  his  face  gradu 
ally  changing  from  the  smooth  beauty  of  his  youth  to  the 
thoughtful  comeliness  of  manhood,  and  thence  to  the  bald, 
impressive  dignity  of  age.  He  was  the  only  individual  in 
variably  present,  yet  on  every  occasion  there  were  murmurs, 
both  from  those  who  knew  his  character  and  position  and 
from  them  whose  hearts  shrunk  back,  as  denying  his  com 
panionship  in  their  mystic  fraternity. 

"  '  Who  is  this  impassive  man  ?'  had  been  asked  a  hun 
dred  times.  '  Has  he  suffered  ?  Has  he  sinned  ?  There 
are  no  traces  of  either.  Then  wherefore  is  he  here  ?' 

"  '  Yon  must  inquire  of  the  stewards  or  of  himself/  was 
the  constant  reply.  '  We  seem  to  know  him  well  here  in 
our  city,  and  know  nothing  of  him  but  what  is  creditable 
and  fortunate.  Yet  hither  he  comes,  year  after  year,  to 
this  gloomy  banquet,  and  sits  among  the  guests  like  a  mar 
ble  statue.  Ask  yonder  skeleton  ;  perhaps  that  may  solve 
the  riddle/ 

"It  was,  in  truth,  a  wonder.  The  life  of  Gervayse  Hast 
ings  was  not  merely  a  prosperous  but  a  brilliant  one. 
Everything  had  gone  well  with  him.  He  was  wealthy  far 
beyond  the  expenditure  that  was  required  by  habits  of 
•magnificewce,  a  taste  of  rare  purity  and  cultivation,  ft  bye. 


THE  CHRISTMAS  BANQ,  UET.  243 

of  travel,  a  scholar's  instinct  to  collect  a  splendid  library, 
and,  moreover,  what  seemed  a  munificent  liberality  to  the 
distressed.  He  had  sought  domestic  happiness,  and  not 
vainly  if  a  lovely  and  tender  wife  and  children  of  fair 
promise  could  insure  it.  lie  had,  besides,  ascended  above 
the  limit  which  separates  the  obscure  from  the  distin 
guished,  and  had  won  a  stainless  reputation  in  affairs  of 
the  wildest  public  importance.  Xot  that  he  was  a  popular 
character  or  had  within  him  the  mysterious  attributes 
which  are  essential  to  that  species  of  success.  To  the  pub 
lic  he  was  a  cold  abstraction  wholly  destitute  of  those  rich 
hues  of  personality,  that  living  warmth  and  the  peculiar 
faculty  of  stamping  his  own  heart's  impression  on  a  multi 
tude  of  hearts  by  which  the  people  recognize  their  favorites. 
And  it  must  be  owned  that,  after  his  most  intimate  asso 
ciates  had  done  their  best  to  know  him  thoroughly  and 
love  him  warmly,  they  were  startled  to  find  how  little  hold 
he  had  upon  their  affections.  They  approved,  they  ad 
mired,  but  still,  in  those  moments  when  the  human  spirit 
most  craves  reality,  they  shrunk  back  from  Gervayse  Hast 
ings  as  powerless  to  give  them  what  they  sought.  It  was 
the  feeling  of  distrustful  regret  with  which  we  should  draw 
back  the  hand  after  extending  it  in  an  illusive  twilight  to 
grasp  the  hand  of  a  shadow  upon  the  wall. 

"As  the  superficial  fervency  of  youth  decayed  this  pecu 
liar  effect  of  Gervayse  Hastings'  character  grew  more  per 
ceptible.  His  children,  when  he  extended  his  arms,  came 
coldly  to  his  knees,  but  never  climbed  them  of  their  own 
accord.  His  wife  wept  secretly  and  almost  adjudged  her 
self  a  criminal  because  she  shivered  in  the  chill  of  his 
bosom.  He,  too,  occasionally  appeared  not  unconscious 
of  the  chilliness  of  his  normal  atmosphere,  and  willing,  if  it 
might  be  so,  to  warm  himself  at  a  kindly  lire.  But  age 
stole  onward  and  benumbed  him  more  and  more.  As  the 
hoar  frost  began  to  gather  on  him  his  wife  went  to  her 
grave,  and  was  doubtless  warmer  there;  his  children  either 
died  or  were  scattered  to  different  homes  of  their  own  ;  and 
old  Gervayse  Hastings — unscathed  by  grief,  alone,  but 
needing  no  companionship — continued  his  steady  walk 
through  life  and  still  on  every  Christmas  day  attended  at 
the  dismal  banquet.  His  privilege  as  a  guest  had  become 
prescriptive  now.  Had  he  claimed  the  head  of  the  table, 
even  the  skeleton  would  have  been  rejected  from  its  seat, 


244  MUtitiES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"  Finally,  at  the  merry  Christmas-tide  when  he  had  num 
bered  fourscore  years  complete,  this  pale,  high-browed, 
marble-featured  old  man  once  more  entered  the  long-fre 
quented  hall  with  the  same  impassive  aspect  that  had  called 
forth  so  much  dissatisfied  remark  at  his  first  attendance. 
Time,  except  in  matters  ^merely  external,  had  done  nothing 
for  him,  either  of  good  or  evil.  As  he  took  his  place  he 
threw  a  calm  inquiring  glance  around  the  table,  as  if  to 
ascertain  whether  any  guest  had  yet  appeared,  after  so 
many  unsuccessful  banquets,  who  might  impart  to  him  the 
mystery,  the  deep  warm  secret,  the  life  within  the  life, 
which,  whether  manifested  in  joy  or  sorrow,  is  what  gives 
substance  to  a  world  of  shadows. 

"  (  My  friends/  said  Gervayse  Hastings,  assuming  a  posi 
tion  which  his  long  conversance  with  the  festival  caused  to 
appear  natural,  '  you  are  welcome!  I  drink  to  you  all  in 
this  cup  of  sepulchral  wine/ 

"  The  guests  replied  courteously,  but  still  in  a  manner  that 
proved  them  unable  to  receive  the  old  man  as  a  member  of 
their  sad  fraternity. 

"  It  may  be  well  to  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  the  present 
company  at  the  banquet.  One  was  formerly  a  clergyman 
enthusiastic  in  his  profession,  and  apparently  of  the  gen 
uine  dynasty  of  those  old  Puritan  divines  whose  faith  in 
their  calling  and  stern  exercise  of  it  had  placed  them 
among  the  mighty  of  the  earth.  But,  yielding  to  the 
speculative  tendency  of  the  age,  he  had  gone  astray  from 
the  firm  foundation  of  an  ancient  faith  and  wandered  into 
a  cloud-region  where  everything  was  misty  and  deceptive, 
ever  mocking  him  with  a  semblance  of  reality,  but  still 
dissolving  when  he  flung  himself  upon  it  for  support  and 
rest.  His  instinct  and  early  training  demanded  something 
steadfast,  but,  looking  forward,  he  beheld  vapors  piled  on 
vapors,  and  behind  him  an  impassable  gulf  between  the 
man  of  yesterday  and  to-day,  on  the  borders  of  which  he 
paced  to  and  fro  sometimes  wringing  his  hands  in  agony 
and  often  making  his  own  woe  a  theme  of  scornful  merri 
ment.  This  surely  was  a  miserable  man.  Next,  there  was 
atheorist,  one  of  a  numerous  tribe,  although  he  deemed  him 
self  unique  since  the  creation — a  theorist  who  had  con 
ceived  a  plan  by  which  all  the  wretchedness  of  earth, 
moral  and  physical,  might  be  done  away  and  the  bliss 
$1  |he  millennium  at  once  accomplished,  J3ut;  the  in- 


THE  CHRISTMAS  BANQUET.  245 

credulity  of  mankind  debarring  him  from  action,  ho  was 
smitten  with  as  much  grief  as  if  the  whole  mass  of  woe 
which  lie  was  denied  the  opportunity  to  remedy  were 
crowded  into  his  own  bosom.  A  plain  old  man  in  black 
attracted  much  of  the  company's  notice  on  the  supposi 
tion  that  he  was  no  other  than  Father  Miller,  who,  it 
seemed,  had  given  himself  up  to  despair  at  the  tedious 
delay  of  the  final  conflagration.  Then  there  was  a  man 
distinguished  for  native  pride  and  obstinacy  who  a  little 
while  "before  had  possessed  immense  wealth  and  held  the 
control  of  a  vast  moneyed  interest,  which  he  had  wielded 
in  the  same  spirit  as  a  despotic  monarch  would  wield  the 
power  of  his  empire,  carrying  on  a  tremendous  moral  war 
fare  the  roar  and  tremor  of  which  was  felt  at  every  fireside 
in  the  land.  At  length  came  a  crushing  ruin — a  total 
overthrow  of  fortune,  power  and  character — the  effect  of 
which  on  his  imperious  and  in  many  respects  noble  and 
lofty  nature  might  have  entitled  him  to  a  place- not  merely 
at  our  festival,  but  among  the  peers  of  Pandemonium. 
There  was  a  modern  philanthropist  who  had  become  so 
deeply  sensible  of  the  calamities  of  thousands  and  millions 
of  his  fellow-creature,  and  of  the  impracticableness  of  any 
general  measures  for  their  relief,  that  he  had  no  heart 
to  do  what  little  good  lay  immediately  within  his  power, 
but  contented  himself  with  being  miserable  for  sympathy, 
ft  ear  him  sat  a  gentleman  in  a  predicament  hitherto 
unprecedented,  but  of  which  the  present  epoch  probably 
affords  numerous  examples.  Ever  since  he  was  "of  capa 
city  to  read  a  newspaper  this  person  had  prided  himself 
on  his  consistent  adherence  to  one  political  party,  but 
in  the  confusion  of  these  latter  days  had  got  bewildered, 
and  knew  not  whereabouts  his  party  was.  This  wretched 
condition,  so  morally  desolate  and  disheatening  to  a  man 
who  has  long  accustomed  himself  to  merge  his  individuality 
in  the  mass  of  a  great  body,  can  only  be  conceived  by  such 
as  have  experienced  it.  His  next  companion  was  a  popu 
lar  orator  who  had  lost  his  voice,  and,  as  it  was  pretty 
much  all  that  he  had  to  lose,  had  fallen  into  a  state  of 
hopeless  melancholy.  The  table  was  likewise  graced  by 
two  of  the  gentler  sex — one,  a  half-starved,  consumptive 
seamstress,  the  representative  of  thousands  just  as  wretched; 
the  other,  a  woman  of  unemployed  energy  who  found  her 
self  in  the  world  with  nothing  to  achieve,  nothing  to  enjoy 


246  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

and  nothing  even  to  suffer.  She  had,  therefore,  driven 
herself  to  the  verge  of  madness  by  dark  broodings  over  the 
wrongs  of  her  sex  and  its  exclusion  from  a  proper  field  of 
action.  The  roll  of  guests  being  thus  complete,  a  side- 
table  had  been  set  for  three  or  four  disappointed  office- 
seekers,  with  hearts  as  sick  as  death,  whom  the  stewards 
had  admitted,  partly  because  their  calamities  really  en 
titled  them  to  entrance  here  and  partly  that  they  were  in 
especial  need  of  a  good  dinner.  There  was  likewise  a 
homeless  dog,  with  his  tail  between  his  legs,  licking  np 
the  crumb  and  gnawing  the  fragments  of  the  feast — such  a 
melancholy  cur  as  one  sometimes  sees  about  the  streets 
without  a  master  and  willing  to  follow  the  first  that  will 
accept  his  service. 

"  In  their  own  way  these  were  as  wretched  a  set  of  people 
as  ever  had  assembled  at  the  festival.  There  they  sat,  with 
the  veiled  skeleton  of  the  founder  holding  aloft  the  cypress- 
wreath  at  one  end  of  the  table,  and  at  the  other,  wrapped 
in  furs,  the  withered  figure  of  Gervayse  Hastings,  stately, 
calm  and  cold,  impressing  the  company  with  awe,  yet  so 
little  interesting  their  sympathy  that  he  might  have  van 
ished  into  thin  air  without  their  once  exclaiming:  '  Whither 
is  he  gone?' 

"  '  Sir/  said  the  philanthropist,  addressing  the  old  man, 
'  you  have  been  so  long  a  guest  at  this  annual  festival,  and 
have  thus  been  conversant  with  so  many  varieties  of  human 
affliction,  that  not  improbably  you  have  thence  derived 
some  great  and  important  lessons.  How  blessed  were  your 
lot  could  you  reveal  a  secret  by  which  all  this  mass  of  woe 
might  be  removed! ' 

<f '  I  know  of  but  one  misfortune/  answered  Gervayse 
Hastings,  quietly,  '  and  that  is  my  own/ 

"'Your  own!'  rejoined  the  philanthropist.  'And, 
looking  back  on  your  serene  and  prosperous  life,  how  can 
you  claim  to  be  the  sole  unfortunate  of  the  human  race?" 

"'You  will  not  understand  it/  replied  Gervayse  Hast 
ings,  feebly  and  with  a  singular  inefficiency  of  pronouncia- 
tion,  and  sometimes  putting  one  word  for  another.  'None 
have  ^understood  it — not  even  those  who  experience  the 
like.  J*Jt  is  a  chilliness,  a  want  of  earnestness,  a  feeling  as 
if  what  should  be  my  heart  were  a  thing  of  vapor,  a  haunt 
ing  perception  of  unreality.  Thus,  seeming  to  possess  all 
that  other  men  have — all  that  men  a.im  at — I  have  really 


TUB  CHRISTMAS  BANQUET.  247 

possessed  nothing — neither  joy  nor  griefs^  All  things,  all 
persons — as  was  truly  said  to  me  at  this  table  long  and  long 
ago — have  been  like  shadows  flickering  on  the  wall.  It  was 
so  with  my  wife  and  children,  with  those  who  seemsd  my 
friends;  it  is  so  with  yourselves,  whom  1  see  now  before  me. 
Neither  have  I  myself  any  real  existence,  but  am  a  shadow 
like  the  rest/ 

"  '  And  how  is  it  with  your  views  of  a  future  life?'  in 
quired  the  speculative  clergymen. 

"  '  Worse  than  with  you/  said  the  old  man,  in  a  hollow 
and  feeble  tone,  '  for  I  cannot  conceive  it  earnestly  enough 
to  feel  either  hope  or  fear.  Mine — mine  is  the  wretched 
ness!  This  cold  heart — this  unreal  life!  Ah!  it  grows 
colder  still/ 

"  It  so  chanced  that  at  this  juncture  the  decayed  liga 
ments  of  the  skeleton  gave  way  and  the  dry  bones  fell  to 
gether  in  a  heap,  thus  causing  the  dusty  wreath  of  cypress 
to  drop  upon  the  table.  The  attention  of  the  company 
being  thus  diverted  for  a  single  instant  from  Gervayse 
Hastings,  they  perceived,  on  turning  again  toward  him, 
that  the  old  man  had  undergone  a  change;  his  shadow  had 
ceased  to  flicker  on  the  wall." 

"  Well,  Ixosina,  what  is  your  criticism?"  asked  Roderick, 
as  he  rolled  up  the  manuscript. 

"  Frankly,  your  success  is  by  no  means  complete,"  re 
plied  she.  "  It  is  true  I  have  an  idea  of  the  character  you 
endeavor  to  describe,  but  it  is  rather  by  dint  of  my  own 
thought  than  you  expression." 

"  That  is  unavoidable,"  observed  the  sculptor,  "because 
the  characteristics  are  all  negative.  If  Gervayse  Hastings 
could  have  imbibed  one  human  grief  at  the  gloomy  ban 
quet,  the  task  of  describing  him  would  have  been  infinitely 
easier.  Of  such  persons — and  we  do  meet  with  these  moral 
monster  now  and  then — it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  they 
came  to  exist  here  or  what  there  is  in  them  capable  of  ex 
istence  hereafter.  They  seem  to  be  on  the  outside  of  every 
thing,  and  nothing  wearies  the  soul  more  than  an  attempt 
to  comprehend  them  within  its  grasp." 


248  MOS8JM  FROM  AN  OLD  MAJM& 


BROWNE'S  WOODEN  IMAGE. 


ONE  sunshiny  morning  in  the  good  old  times  of  the  town 
of  Boston  a  young  carver  in  wood  well  known  by  the  name 
of  Drowne  stood  contemplating  a  large  oaken  log  which  it 
was  his  purpose  to  convert  into  the  figure-head  of  a  vessel, 
and  while  he  discussed' within  his  own  mind  what  sort  of 
shape  or  similitude  it  were  well  to  bestow  upon  this  excel 
lent  piece  of  timber  there  came  into  Browne's  workshop  a 
certain  Capt.  Hunnewell,  owner  and  commander  of  the 
good  brig  called  the  Cynosure,,  which  had  just  returned 
from  her  first  voyage  to  Fayal. 

"  Ah!  that  will  do,  Drowne,  that  will  do!"  cried  the  jolly 

captain,  tapping  the  log  with  his  rattan.     "  I  bespeak  this 

/  very  piece  of  oak  for  the  figure-head  of  the  Cynosure.    She 

has  shown  herself  the  sweetest  craft  that  ever  floated,  and 

I  mean  to  decorate  her  prow  with  the  handsomest  image 

.  that  the  skill  of  man  can  cut  out  of  timber.  And,  Drowne, 

you  are  the  fellow  to  execute  it." 

"  You  give  me  more  credit  than  I  deserve,  Capt.  Hunne 
well,"  said  the  carver,  modestly,  yet  as  one  conscious  of 
eminence  in  his  art,  "  but  for  the  sake  of  the  good  brig  I 
stand  ready  to  do  my  best.  And  which  of  these  designs  do 
you  prefer?  Here/'  pointing  to  a  staring  half-length 
figure  in  a  white  wig  and  scarlet  coat — "  here  is  an  excel- 
•  lent  model,  the  likeness  of  our  gracious  king.  Here  is  the 
valiant  Admiral  Vernon.  Or  if  you  prefer  a  female  figure, 
what  say  you  to  Britannia  with  the  trident?" 

"  All  very  fine,  Drowne — all  very  fine,"  answered  the 
mariner;  "  but,  as  nothing  like  the  brig  ever  swam  the 
ocean,  so  I  am  determined  she  shall  have  such  a  figure 
head  as  old  Neptune  never  saw  in  his  life.  And,  what  is 
more,  as  there  is  a  secret  in  the  matter,  you  must  pledge 
your  credit  not  to  betray  it," 


DROWN E'S  WOODEN  IMAGE.  249 

' '  Certainly,"  said  Drowne,  marveling,  however,  what 
possible  mystery  there  could  be  in  reference  to  an.  affair  so 
open,  of  necessity,  to  the  inspection  of  all  the  world  as  the 
figure-head  of  a  vessel.  "You  may  depend,  captain,  on 
my  being  as  secret  as  the  nature  of  the  case  will  permit." 

Capt.  Hunnewell  then  took  Drowne  by  the  button  and 
communicated  his  wishes  in  so  low  a  tone  that  it  would  be 
unmannerly  to  repeat  what  was  evidently  intended  for  the 
carver's  private  ear.  We  shall,  therefore,  take  the  oppor 
tunity  to  give  the  reader  a  few  desirable  particulars  about 
Drowne  himself. 

He  was  the  first  American  who  is  known  to  have  at 
tempted — in  a  very  humble  line,  it  is  true — that  art  in 
which  we  can  now  reckon  so  many  names  already  distin 
guished  or  rising  to  distinction.  From  his  earliest  boyhood 
he  had  exhibited  a  knack — for  it  would  be  too  proud  a 
word  to  call  it  genius:  a  knack,  therefore — for  the  imita 
tion  of  the  human  figure  in  whatever  material  came  most 
readily  to  hand.  The  snows  of  New  England  winter  had 
often  supplied  him  with  a  species  of  marble  as  dazzlingly 
white,  at  least,  as  the  Parian  or  the  Cararra,  and,  if  less 
durable,  yet  sufficiently  so  to  correspond  with  any  claims 
to  permanent  existence  possessed  by  the  boy's  frozen  statues. 
Yet  they  won  admiration  from  maturer  judges  than  his 
schoolfellows,  and  were,  indeed,  remarkably  clever,  though 
destitute  of  the  native  warmth  that  might  have  made  the 
snow  melt  beneath  his  hand.  As  he  advanced  in  life  the 
young  man  adopted  pine  and  oak  as  eligible  materials  for 
the  display  of  his  skill,  which  now  begin  to  bring  him  a 
return  of  solid  silver,  as  well  as  the  empty  praise  that  had 
been  apt  reward  enough  for  his  productions  of  evanescent 
snow.  He  became  noted  for  carving  ornamental  pump- 
heads  and  wooden  urns  for  gate-posts  and  decorations  more 
grotesque  than  fanciful  for  mantel-pieces.  No  apothecary 
would  have  deemed  himself  in  the  way  of  obtaining  custom 
without  setting  up  a  gilded  mortar,  if  not  a  head  of  Galen 
or  Hippocrates,  from  the  skillful  hand  of  Drowne.  But 
the  great  scope  of  his  business  lay  in  the  manufacture  of 
figure-heads  for  vessels.  Whether  it  were  the  monarch 
himself  of  some  famous  British  admiral  or  general  or  the 
governor  of  the  province,  or,  perchance,  the  favorite 
daughter  of  the  ship-owner,  there  the  image  stood  above 
the  prow  decked  out  in  gorgeous  colors,  magnificently 


250  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

gilded  and  staring  the  whole  world  out  of  countenance,  as 
if  from  an  innate  consciousness  of  its  own  superiority. 
These  specimens  of  native  sculpture  had  crossed  the  sea  in 
all  directions  and  been  not  ignobly  noticed  among  the 
crowded  shipping  of  the  Thames  and  wherever  else  the 
hardy  mariners  of  New  England  had  pushed  their  adven 
tures.  It  must  be  confessed  that  a  family  likeness  per 
vaded  these  respectable  progeny  of  Drow ne's  skill — that 
the  benign  countenance  of  the  king  resembled  those  of  his 
subjects  and  that  Miss  Peggy  Hobart,  the  merchant's 
daughter,  bore  a  remarkable  similitude  to  Britannia,  Vic 
tory  and  other  ladies  of  the  allegoric  sisterhood;  and 
finally,  that  they  all  had  a  kind  of  wooden  aspect  which 
proved  an  intimate  relationship  with  the  unshaped  blocks 
of  timber  in  the  carver's  work-shop.  But,  at  least,  there 
was  no  inconsiderable  skill  of  hand,  nor  a  deficiency  of  any 
attribute  to  render  them  really  works  of  art  except  that 
deep  quality,  be  it  of  soul  or  intellect,  which  bestows  life 
upon  the  lifeless  and  warmth  upon  the  cold  and  which,  had 
it  been  present,  would  have  made  Drowne's  wooden  image 
instinct  with  spirit. 

The  captain  of  the  Cynosure  had  now  finished  his  in 
structions. 

"And,  Drowne,"  said  he,  impressively,  "you  must  lay 
aside  all  other  business  and  set  about  this  forthwith.  And, 
as  to  the  price,  only  do  the  job  in  first-rate  style  and  you 
shall  settle  that  point  yourself." 

"  Very  well,  captain,"  answered  the  carver,  who  looked 
grave  and  somewhat  perplexed,  yet  had  a  sort  of  smile 
upon  his  visage.  "  Depend  upon  it,  I'll  do  my  utmost  to 
satisfy  you." 

From  that  moment  the  men  of  taste  about  Long  Wharf 
and  the  town  dock,  who  were  wont  to  show  their  love  for 
the  arts  by  frequent  visits  to  Drowne's  workshop  and  ad 
miration  of  his  wooden  images,  began  to  be  sensible  of  a 
.  mystery  in  the  carver's  conduct.  Often  he  was  absent  in 
the  daytime.  Sometimes,  as  might  be  judged  by  gleams 
of  light  from  the  shop  windows,  he  was  at  work  until  a 
late  hour  of  the  evening,  although  neither  knock  not  voice 
on  such  occasions  could  gain  admittance  for  a  visitor  or 
elicit  any  word  of  response.  Nothing  remarkable,  how- 
ever,  was  observed  in  the  shop  at  those  hours  when  it  was 
I  thrown  open.  A  fine  piece  of  timber,  indeed,  which 


DUOWNE'8  WOODEN  IMAGE.  251 

Drowne  was  known  to  have  reserved  for  some  work  of  es 
pecial  dignity,  was  seen  to  be  gradually  assuming  shape.^- 
What  shape  it  was  destined  ultimately  to  take  was  a  prob 
lem  to  his  friends  and  a  point  on  which  the  carver  himself 
preserved   a   rigid   silence.     But   day   after    day,   though 
Drowne  was  seldom  noticed  in  the  act  of  working  upon 
it,  this  rude  form  began  to  be  developed,  until  it  became 
evident  to  all  observers  that  a  female  figure  was  growing^ 
into  mimic  life.     At  each  new   visit  they  beheld  a  larger 
pile  of  wooden  chips  and  a  nearer  approximation  to  some-' 
thing  beautiful.     It  seemed  as  if  the  hamadryad  of  the  oak 
had  sheltered  herself  from  the  unimaginative  world  within    / 
the  heart  of  her  native  tree,  and  that  it  was  only  necessary 
to  remove  the  strange  shapelessness  that  had  encrusted  her 
and  reveal  the  grace  and  loveliness  of  a  divinity.     Imper 
fect  as  the  design,  the  attitude,  the  costume,  and  especially 
the  face,  of  the  image,  still  remained,  there  was  already  an  / 
effect  that  drew  the  eye  from   the  wooden  cleverness  of 
Drowne's  earlier  productions  and.  fixed  it  upon  the  tantaliz 
ing  mystery  of  this  new  project. 

•Caplayy.lkG. celebrated  painter,  then  a  young  man  and  a 
resident  of  Boston,  came  one  day  to  visit  Drowne,  for  he 
had  recognized  so  much  of  moderate  ability  in  the  carver 
as  to  induce  him,  in  the  dearth  of  any  professional  sympa 
thy,  to  cultivate  his  acquaintance.  On  entering  the  shop 
the  artist  glanced  at  the  inflexible  image  of  king,  com 
mander,  dame  and  allegory  that  stood  around,  on  the 
best  of  which  might  have  been  bestowed  the  questionable 
praise  that  it  looked  as  if  a  living  man  had  here  been 
changed  to  wood,  and  that  not  only  the  physical,  but  the 
intellectual  and  spiritual,  part  partook  of  the  stolid  trans 
formation.  But  in  not  a  single  instance  did  it  seem  as  if 
the  wood  were  imbibing  the  ethereal  essence  of  humanity. 
What  a  wide  distinction  is  here!  and  how  far  would  the 
slightest  portion  of  the  latter  merit  have  outvalued  the  ut 
most  degree  of  the  former! 

"  My  friend  Drowne/'  said  Copley,  smiling  to  himself, 
but  alluding  to  the  mechanical  and  wooden  cleverness  that 
so  invariably  distinguished  the  images,  '''you  are  really  a 
remarkable  person.  I  have  seldom  met  with  a  man  in 
your  line  of  business  that  could  do  so  much,  for  one  other 
touch  might  make  this  figure  of  Gen.  Woll'e,  for  instance,  a 
breathing  and  intelligent  human  creature." 


252  MOSSES  FHOM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"  You  would  have  me  think  that  you  are  praising  me 
highly,  Mr.  Copley,"  answered  Drowne,  turning  his  back 
upon  Wolfe's  image  in  apparent  disgust,  "but  there  has 
come  a  light  into  my  mind.  I  know  what  you  know  as 
well — that  the  one  touch  which  you  speak  of  as  deficient 
is  the  only  one  that  would  be  truly  valuable,  and  that  with 
out  it  these  works  of  mine  are  no  better  than  worthless 
abortions.  There  is  the  same  difference  between  them  and 
the  works  of  an  inspired  artist  as  between  a  sign-post  daub 
and  one  of  your  best  pictures." 

"  This  is  strange,"  cried  Copley,  looking  him  in  the  face, 
which  now,  as  the  painter  fancied,  had  a  singular  depth  of 
intelligence,  though  hitherto  it  had  not  given  him  greatly 
the  advantage  over  his  own  family  of  wooden  images. 
"  What  has  come  over  you?  How  is  it  that,  possessing 
the  idea  which  you  have  now  uttered,  you  should  produce 
only  such  works  as  these?" 

The  carver  smiled,  but  made  no  reply.  Copley  turned 
again  to  the  images,  conceiving  that  the  sense  of  de 
ficiency  so  rare  in  a  merely  mechanical  character  must 
surely  imply  a  genius  the  tokens  of  which  had  been  over 
looked.  But  no;  there  was  not  a  trace  of  it.  He  was 
about  to  withdraw,  when  his  eyes  chanced  to  fall  upon  a 
half-developed  figure  which  lay  in  a  corner  of  the  work 
shop  surrounded  by  scattered  chips  of  oak.  It  arrested 
him  at  once. 

"What  is  here?  Who  has  done  this?"  he  broke  out, 
after  contemplating  it  in  speechless  astonishment  for  an 
instant.  "  Here  is  the  divine,  the  life-giving  touch! 
What  inspired  hand  is  beckoning  this  wood  to  arise  and 
live?  Whose  work  is  this?  " 

"  No  man's  work,"  replied  Drowne.  "  The  figure 
lies  within  that  block  of  oak,  and  it  is  my  business  to 
find  it." 

"  Drowne,"  said  the  true  artist,  grasping  the  carver 
fervently  by  the  hand;  "  you  are  a  man  of  genius! " 

As  Copley  departed,  happening  to  glance  backward  from 
the  threshold,  he  beheld  Downe  bending  over  the  half- 
created  shape  and  stretching  forth  his  arms  as  if  he  would 
have  embraced  and  drawn  it  to  his  heart,  while,  had  such 
a  miracle  been  possible,  his  countenance  expressed  passion 
enough  to  communicate  warmth  and  sensibility  to  the  life 
less  oak. 


DROWNED  WOODEN  IMAGE.  253 

"  Strange  enough!"  said  the  artist  to  himself.  "Who 
would  have  looked  for  a  modern  Pygmalion  in  the  person 
of  a  yankee  mechanic?" 

As  yet  the  image  was  but  vague  in  its  outward  present 
ment;  so  that,  as  in  the  cloud-shapes  around  the  western 
sun,  the  observer  rather  felt  or  was  led  to  imagine  than 
really  saw  what  was  intended  by  it.  Day  by  day,  how 
ever,  the  work  assumed  greater  precision  and  settled  its 
irregular  and  misty  outline  into  distincter  grace  and 
beauty.  The  general  design  was  now  obvious  to  the  com 
mon  eye.  It  was  a  female  figure  in  what  appeared  to  be  a 
foreign  dress,  the  gown  being  laced  over  the  bosom  and 
opening  in  front,  so  as  to  disclose  a  skirt  or  petticoat  the 
folds  and  inequalities  of  which  were  admirably  represented 
in  the  oaken  substance.  She  wore  a  hat  of  singular  grace 
fulness  and  abundantly  laden  with  flowers  such  as  never 
grew  in  the  rude  soil  of  New  England,  but  which,  with  all 
their  fanciful  luxuriance,  had  a  natural  truth  that  it 
seemed  impossible  for  the  most  fertile  imagination  to  have 
attained  without  copying  from  real  prototypes.  There 
were  several  little  appendages  to  this  dress,  such  as  a  fan,, 
a  pair  of  earrings,  a  chain  about  the  neck,  a  watch  in  the" 
bosom  and  a  ring  upon  the  finger,  all  of  which  would 
have  been  deemed  beneath  the  dignity  of  sculpture. 
They  were  put  on,  however,  with  as  much  taste  as  a  lovely 
woman  might  have  shown  in  her  attire,  and  could,  there 
fore,  have  shocked  none  but  a  judgment  spoiled  by  ar 
tistic  rules. 

The  face  was  still  imperfect,  but  gradually,  by  a  magic 
touch,  intelligence  and  sensibility  brightened  through  the 
features  with  all  the  effect  of  light  gleaming  forth  from 
within  the  solid  oak.  The  face  became  alive.  It  was  a 
beautiful,  though  not  precisely  regular  and  somewhat 
haughty  aspect,  but  with  a  certain  piquancy  about  the 
eyes  and  mouth  which,  of  all  expressions,  would  have 
seemed  the  most  impossible  to  throw  over  a  wooden  coun 
tenance.  And  now,  so  far  as  carving  went,  this  wonder 
ful  production  was  complete. 

"Drowne,"  said  Copley,  who  had  hardly  missed  a  single 
day  in  his  visits  to  the  carver's  workshop,  "  if  this  work 
were  in  marble,  it  would  make  you  famous  at  once;  nay,  I 
would  almost  affirm  that  it  would  make  an  era  in  the  art. 
It  is  as  ideal  as  an  antique  statue,  yet  as  real  as  any  love- 


254  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

ly  woman  whom  one  meets  at  a  fireside  or  in  the  street. 
But  I  trust  you  do  not  mean  to  desecrate  this  exquisite 
creature  with  paint,  like  those  staring  kings  and  admirals 
yonder?" 

"Not  paint  her?"  exclaimed  Capt.  Htmnewell,  who 
stood  by.  "  Not  paint  the  figure-head  of  the  Cynosure-? 
And  what  sort  of  a  figure  should  I  cut  in  a  foreign  port 
with  such  an  unpainted  oaken  stick  as  this  over  my  prow? 
She  must  and  she  shall  be  painted  to  the  life,  from  the 
topmost  flower  in  her  hat  down  to  the  silver  spangles  on 
her  slippers." 

"  Mr.  Copley,"  said  Drowne,  quietly,  "  I  know  noth 
ing  of  marble  statuary  and  nothing  of  the  sculptor's 
rules  of  art,  but  of  this  wooden  image,  this  work  of  my 
hands,  this  creature  of  my  heart " — and  here  his  voice  fal 
tered  and  choked  in  a  very  singular  manner — "  of  this — of 
her — I  may  say  that  I  know  something.  A  well- spring  of 
inward  wisdom  gushed  within  me  as  I  wrought  upon  the 
oak  with  my  whole  strength  and  soul  and  faith.  Let 
others  do  what  they  may  with  marble  and  adopt  what  rules 
they  choose;  if  I  can  produce  my  desired  effect  by  painted 
wood,  those  rules  are  not  for  me  and  I  have  a  right  to  dis 
regard  them." 

"The  very  spirit  of  genius!"  muttered  Copley  to  him 
self.  "  How  otherwise  should  this  carver  feel  himself 
entitled  to  transcend  all  rules  and  make  me  ashamed  of 
quoting  them?" 

He  looked  earnestly  at  Drowne  and  again  saw  that  ex 
pression  of  human  love  which  in  a  spiritual  sense,  as  the 
artist  could  not  help  imagining,  was  the  secret  of  the  life 
that  had  been  breathed  into  this  block  of  wood. 

The  carver,  still  in  the  same  secrecy  that  marked  all  his 
operations  upon  this  mysterious  image,  proceeded  to  paint 
the  habiliments  in  their  proper  colors  and  the  countenance 
with  nature's  red  and  white.  When  all  was  finished,  he 
threw  open  his  workshop  and  admitted  the  townspeople  to 
behold  what  he  had  done.  Most  persons  at  their  first  en 
trance  felt  impelled  to  remove  their  hats  and  pay  such  rev 
erence  as  was  due  to  the  richly-dressed  and  beautiful 
young  lady  who  seemed  to  stand  in  a  corner  of  the  room 
with  oaken  chips  and  shavings  scattered  at  her  feet.  Then 
came  a  sensation  of  fear — as  if,  not  being  actually  human, 
yet  so  like  humanity,,  she  must  therefore  be  something  pre- 


DROWNED  WOODEtf  IMAGE.  255 

ternatnral.  There  was,  in  truth,  an  indefinable  air  and  ex 
pression  that  might  reasonably  induce  the  query  who  and 
from  what  sphere  this  daughter  of  the  oak  should  be.  The 
strange  rich  flowers  of  Eden  on  her  head;  the  complexion 
so  much  deeper  and  more  brilliant  than  those  of  our  native 
beauties  ;  the  foreign,  as  it  seemed,  and  fantastic  garb,  yet 
not  too  fantastic  to  be  worn  decorously  in  the  street ;  the 
delicately-wrought  embroidery  of  the  skirt;  the  broad  gold 
chain  about  her  neck  ;  the  curious  ring  upon  her  ringer; 
the  fan  so  exquisitely  sculptured  in  open  work  and  painted 
to  resemble  pearl  or  ebony, — where  could  Drowne  in  his 
sober  walk  of  life  have  beheld  the  vision  here  so  matchless 
ly  embodied?  And  then  her  face  !  In  the  dark  eyes  and 
around  the  voluptuous  mouth  there  played  a  look  made 
up  of  pride,  coquetry  and  a  gleam  of  mirthfulness  which 
impressed  Copley  with  the  idea  that  the  image  was  secretly 
enjoying  the  perplexing  admiration  of  himself  and  other 
beholders. 

"And  will  you,"  said  he  to  the  carver,  "permit  this 
masterpiece  to  become  the  figure-head  of  a  vessel  ?  Give 
the  honest  captain  yonder  figure  of  Britannia — it  will  an 
swer  his  purpose  far  better — and  send  this  fairy-queen  to 
England,  where,  for  aught  I  know,  it  may  bring  you  a 
thousand  pounds." 

"I  have  not  wrought  it  for  money,"  said  Drowne. 

ff  What  sort  of  a  fellow  is  this?  "  thought  Copley.  "  A 
yankee  and  throw  away  the  chance  of  making  his  fortune  ! 
He  has  gone  mad  and  thence  has  come  this  gleam  of 
genius." 

There  was  still  further  proof  of  Drowne's  lunacy,  if 
credit  were  due  to  the  rumor  that  he  had  been  seen  kneel 
ing  at  the  feet  of  the  oaken  lady  and  gazing  with  a  lover's 
passionate  ardor  into  the  face  that  his  own  hands  had 
created.  The  bigots  of  the  day  hinted  that  it  would  be 
no  matter  of  surprise  if  an  evil  spirit  were  allowed  to 
enter  this  beautiful  form  and  seduce  the  carver  to  de 
struction. 

The  fame  of  the  image  spread  far  and  wide.  The  inhab 
itants  visited  it  so  universally  that  after  a  few  days  of  exhi 
bition  there  was  hardly  an  old  man  or  a  child  who  had  not 
become  minutely  familiar  with  its  aspect.  Had  the  story 
of  Drowne's  wooden  image  ended  here,  its  celebrity  might 
have  been  prolonged  for  many  years  by  the  reminiscences 


256  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

of  those  who  looked  upon  it  in  their  childhood  and  saw 
nothing  else  so  beautiful  in  after-life.  But  the  town  was 
now  astounded  by  an  event  the  narrative  of  which  has 
formed  itself  into  one  of  the  most  singular  legends  that  are 
yet  to  be  met  with  in  the  traditionary  chimney-corners  of 
the  New  England  metropolis,  where  old  men  and  women 
sit  dreaming  of  the  past  and  wag  their  heads  at  the  dream 
ers  of  the  present  and  the  future. 

One  tine  morning,  just  before  the  departure  of  the  Cyno 
sure  on  her  second  voyage  to  Fayal,  the  commander  of  that 
gallant  vessel  was  seen  to  issue  from  his  residence  in  Han 
over  street.  He  was  stylishly  dressed  in  a  blue  broadcloth 
coat  with  gold  lace  at  the  seams  and  buttonholes,  an  em 
broidered  scarlet  waistcoat,  a  triangular  hat  with  a  loop  and 
broad  binding  of  gold,  and  wore  a  silver-hilted  hanger  at 
his  side.  But  the  good  captain  might  have  been  arrayed 
in  the  robes  of  a  prince  or  the  rags  of  a  beggar  without  in 
either  case  attracting  notice  while  obscured  by  such  a  com 
panion  as  now  leaned  on  his  arm.  The  people  in  the  street 
started,  rubbed  their  eyes,  and  either  leaped  aside  from 
their  path  or  stood  as  if  transfixed  to  wood  or  marble  in 
astonishment. 

"  Do  you  see  it?  do  you  see  it?"  cried  one,  with  tremu 
lous  eagerness.  "  It  is  the  very  same!" 

"The  same?"  answered  another,  who  had  arrived  in 
town  only  the  night  before.  "Who  do  you  mean?  I  see 
only  a  sea-captain  in  his  shore-going  clothes,  and  a  young 
lady  in  a  foreign  habit  with  a  bunch  of  beautiful  flowers 
in  her  hat.  On  my  word,  she  is  as  fair  and  bright  a 
damsal  as  my  eyes  have  looked  on  this  many  a  day!" 

"  Yes,  the  same — the  very  same!"  repeated  the  other. 
"Browne's  wooden  image  has  come  to  life." 

Here  was  a  miracle  indeed!  Yet,  illuminated  by  the 
sunshine  or  darkened  by  the  alternate  shade  of  the  houses, 
and  with  its  garments  fluttering  lightly  in  the  morning 
breeze,  there  passed  the  image  along  the  street.  It  was 
exactly  and  minutely  the  shape,  the  garb  and  the  face 
which  the  towns-people  had  so  recently  thronged  to  see 
and  admire.  Not  a  rich  flower  upon  her  head,  not  a  single 
leaf,  but  had  had  its  prototype  in  Drowne's  wooden  work 
manship,  although  now  their  fragile  grace  had  become 
flexible  and  was  shaken  by  every  footstep  that  the  wearer 
made.  The  broad  gold  chain  upon  the  neck  was  identical 


1}  110  WNE'S  WOODEN  IMA G E0  25 7 

with  the  one  represented  on  the  image,  and  glistened  with 
the  motion  imparted  by  the  rise  and  full  of  the  bosom 
which  it  decorated.  A  real  diamond  sparkled  on  her 
linger.  In  her  right  hand  she  bore  a  pearf-and-ebony  fan, 
which  she  flourished  with  a  fantastic  and  bewitching 
coquetry  that  was  likewise  expressed  in  all  her  movements, 
as  well  as  in  the  style  of  her  beauty  and  the  attire  that  so 
well  harmonized  with  it.  The  face,  with  its  brilliant 
depth  of  complexion,  had  the  same  piquancy  of  mirthful 
mischief  that  was  fixed  upon  the  countenance  of  the  image, 
but  which  was  here  varied  and  continually  shifting,  yet 
always  essentially  the  same,  like  the  sunny  gleam  upon  a 
bubbling  fountain.  On  the  whole,  there  was  something  so 
airy,  and  yet  so  real,  in  the  figure,  and  withal  so  perfectly 
did  it  represent  Drowne's  image,  that  people  knew  not 
whether  to  suppose  the  magic  wood  etherealized  into  a 
spirit  or  wanned  and  softened  into  an  actual  woman. 

"  One  thing  is  certain,"  muttered  a  puritan  of  the  old 
stamp:  "  Drowne  has  sold  himself  to  the  devil;  and 
doubtless  this  gay  Capt.  II u nne well  is  a  party  to  the 
bargain." 

(t  And  I,"  said  a  young  man  who  overheard  him:  "  would 
almost  consent  to  be  the  third  victim  for  the  liberty  of 
saluting  those  lovely  lips." 

"And  so  would  I,"  said  Copley,  the  painter,  "for  the 
privilege  of  taking  her  picture." 

The  image — or  the  apparition,  whichever  it  might  be — 
still  escorted  by  the  bold  captain,  proceeded  from  Hanover 
street  through  some  of  the  cross-lanes  that  make  this  por 
tion  of  the  town  so  intricate,  to  Ann  street,  thence  into 
Dock  Square,  and  so  downward  to  D  row  lie's  shop,  which 
stood  just  on  the  water's  edge.  The  crowd  still  followed, 
gathering  volume  as  it  rolled  along.  Never  had  a  mod 
ern  miracle  occurred  in  such  broad  daylight,  nor  in  the 
presence  of  such  a  multitude  of  witnesses.  The  airy  image, 
as  if  conscious  that  she  was  the  object  of  the  murmurs  and 
disturbance  that  swelled  behind  her,  appeared  slightly 
vexed  and  flustered,  yet  still  in  a  manner  consistent  with 
the  light  vivacity  and  sportive  mischief  that  were  written 
in  her  countenance.  She  was  observed  to  flutter  her  fan 
with  such  vehement  rapidity  that  the  elaborate  delicacy  of 
its  workmanship  gave  way,  and  it  remained  broken  in  her 
hand, 


258  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

Arriving  at  Browne's  door,  while  the  captain  threw  it 
open  the  marvellous  apparition  paused  an  instant  on  the 
threshold,  assuming  the  very  attitude  of  the  image  and  cast 
ing  over  the  crowd  that  glance  of  sunny  coquetry  which  all 
remembered  on  the  face  of  the  oaken  lady.  She  and  her 
cavalier  then  disappeared. 

"Ah!"  murmured  the  crowd,  drawing  a  deep  breath,  as 
with  one  vast  pair  of  lungs. 

"  The  world  looks  darker  now  that  she  has  vanished," 
said  some  of  the  young  men. 

"  But  the  aged,  whose  recollections  dated  as  far  back  as 
witch-times,  shook  their  heads  and  hinted  that  our  fore 
fathers  would  have  thought  it  a  pious  deed  to  burn  the 
daughter  of  the  oak  with  fire. 

"  If  she  be  other  than  a  bubble  of  the  elements,"  ex 
claimed  Copley,  "  I  must  look  upon  her  face  again." 

He  according  entered  the  shop,  and- there,  in  her  usual 
corner,  stood  the  image,  gazing  at  him,  as  it  might  seem, 
with  the  very  same  expression  of  mirthful  mischief  that 
had  been  the  farewell  look  of  the  apparition  when,  but  a 
moment  before,  she  turned  her  face  toward  the  crowd. 
The  carver  stood  beside  his  creation,  mending  the  beautiful 
fan,  which  by  some  accident  was  broken  in  her  hand. 
But  there  was  no  longer  any  motion  in  the  lifelike  image 
nor  any  real  woman  in  the  workshop,  not  even  the  witch 
craft  of  a  sunny  shadow  that  might  have  deluded  people's 
eyes  as  it  flitted  along  the  street.  Capt.  Hunnewell,  too, 
had  vanished.  His  hoarse,  seabreezy  tones,  however,  were 
audible  on  the  other  side  of  a  door  that  opened  upon  the 
water. 

"  Sit  down  in  the  stern-sheets,  my  lady,"  said  the  gal 
lant  captain.  "  Come,  bear  a  hand,  you  lubbers,  and  set 
us  on  board  in  the  turning  of  a  minute-glass." 

And  then  was  heard  the  stroke  of  oars. 

"  Browne,"  said  Copley,  with  a  srnile  of  intelligence, 
"you  have  been  a  truly  fortunate  man.  What  painter  or 
statuary  ever  had  such  a  subject?  No  wonder  that  she  in 
spired  a  genius  into  you,  and  first  created  the  artist  who 
afterward  created  her  image." 

Browne  looked  at  him  with  a  visage  that  bore  the  traces 
of  tears,  but  from  which  the  light  of  imagination  and  sen 
sibility,  so  recently  illuminating  it,  had  departed.  He  was 


DROWNE'S  WOODEN  IMAGE.  259 

again  the  mechanical  carver  that  he  had  been  known  to  be 
all  liis  lifetime. 

ik  I  hardly  understand  what  you  mean,,  Mr.  Copley/' 
said  he,  putting  his  hand  to  his  brow.  "  This  image! 
Can  it  have  been  my  work?  Well,  I  have  wrought  it  in  a 
kind  of  dream,  and  now  that  I  am  broad  awake  I  must  set 
about  finishing  yonder  figure  of  Admiral  Vernon." 

And  forthwith  he  employed  himself  on  the  stolid  coun 
tenance  of  one  of  his  wooden  progeny  and  completed  it  in 
his  own  mechanical  style  from  which  he  was  never  known 
afterward  to  deviate.  He  followed  his  business  industri 
ously  for  many  years,  acquired  a  competence,  and  in  the 
latter  part  of  his  life  attained  to  a  dignified  station  in  the 
church,  being  remembered  in  records  and  traditions  as 
Deacon  Drowne,  the  carver.  One  of  his  productions — an 
Indian  chief  gilded  all  over — stood  during  the  better  part 
of  a  century  on  the  cupola  of  the  province  house  bedaz 
zling  the  eyes  of  those  who  looked  upward  like  an  angel 
of  the  sun.  Another  work  of  the  good  deacon's  hand — a 
reduced  likeness  of  friend  Capt.  llunnewell  holding  a 
telescope  and  quadrant — may  be  seen  to  this  day  at  the 
corner  of  Broad  and  State  streets  serving  in  the  useful 
capacity  of  a  sign  to  the  shop  of  a  nautical  instrument 
maker.  We  know  not  how  to  account  for  the  inferiority 
of  this  quaint  old  figure  as  compared  with  the  recorded  ex 
cellence  of  the  oaken  lady,  unless  on  the  supposition  that 
in  every  human  spirit  there  is  imagination,  sensibility, 
creative  power,  genius,  which  according  to  circumstances 
may  either  be  developed  in  this  world  or  shrouded  in  a 
mask  of  dullness  until  another  state  of  being.  To  our 
friend  Drowne  there  came  a  brief  season  of  excitement 
kindled  by  love.  It  rendered  him  a  genius  for  that  one 
occasion,  but  quenched  in  disappointment  left  him  again 
the  mechanical  carver  in  wood  without  the  power  even  of 
appreciating  the  work  that  his  own  hands  had  wrought. 
Yet  who  can  doubt  that  the  very  highest  state  to  which  a 
human  spirit  can  attain  in  its  loftiest  aspirations  is  its 
truest  and  most  natural  state,  and  that  Drowne  was  more 
consistent  with  himself  when  he  wrought  the  admirable 
figure  of  the  mysterious  lady  than  when  he  perpetrated  a 
whole  progeny  of  blockheads? 

There  was  a  rumor  in  Boston  about  this  period  that  a 
young  Portuguese  lady  of  rank,  on  some  occasion  of  polit- 


260  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

ical  or  domestic  disquietude,  had  fled  from  her  home  in 
Fayal  and  put  herself  under  the  protection  of  Capt.  Hun- 
newell,  on  board  of  whose  vessel  and  at  whose  residence 
she  was  sheltered  until  a  change  of  affairs.  This  fair 
stranger  must  have  been  the  original  of  Browne's  wooden 
image. 


THE  INTELLIGENCE-OFFICE.  £61 


THE  INTELLIGENCE-OFFICE. 


A  GRATE  figure  with  a  pair  of  mysterious  spectacles  on 
his  nose  and  a  pen  behind  his  ear  was  seated  at  a  desk  in 
the  corner  of  a  metropolitan  office.  The  apartment  was 
fitted  up  with  a  counter  and  furnished  with  an  oaken 
cabinet  and  a  chair  or  two,  iu  simple  and  business-like 
style.  Around  the  walls  were  stuck  advertisements  of 
articles  lost  or  articles  wanted  or  articles  to  be  disposed  of, 
in  one  or  another  of  which  classes  were  comprehended 
nearly  all  the  conveniences,  or  otherwise,  that  the  imagi 
nation  of  man  has  contrived.  The  interior  of  the  room 
was  thrown  into  shadow,  partly  by  the  tall  edifices  that 
rose  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street  and  partly  by  the 
immense  show-bills  of  blue  and  crimson  paper  that  were 
expanded  over  each  of  the  three  windows.  Undisturbed 
by  the  tramp  of  feet,  the  rattle  of  wheels,  the  hum  of 
voices,  the  shout  of  the  city  crier,  the  scream  of  the  news 
boys,  and  other  tokens  of  the  multitudinous  life  that 
surged  along  in  front  of  the  office,  the  figure  at  the  desk 
pored  diligently  over  a  folio  volume  of  ledger-like  size  and 
aspect,  lie  looked  like  the  spirit  of  a  record — the  soul  of 
his  own  great  volume — made  visible  in  mortal  shape. 

But  scarcely  an  instant  elapsed  without  the  appearance 
at  the  door  of  some  individual  from  the  busy  population 
whose  vicinity  was  manifested  by  so  much  buzz  and  clatter 
and  outcry.  Now  it  was  a  thriving  mechanic  in  quest  of  a 
tenement  that  should  come  within  his  moderate  means  of 
rent,  now  a  ruddy  Irish  girl  from  the  banks  of  Killarney 
wandering  from  kitchen  to  kitchen  of  our  land  while  her 
heart  still  hung  in  the  peat-smoke  of  her  native  cottage, 
now  a  single  gentleman  looking  out  for  economical  board, 
and  now — for  this  establishment  offered  an  epitome  of 
worldly  pursuits — it  was  a  faded  beauty  inquiring  for  her 


2G3  MOS8KS  FROM  ON  OLD  MANSE. 

lost  bloom,  or  Peter  Schlemihl  for  his  lost  shadow,  or  an 
author  of  ten  years'  standing  for  his  vanished  reputation, 
or  a  moody  man  for  yesterday's  sunshine. 

At  the  next  lifting  of  the  latch  there  entered  a  person  with 
his  hat  awry  upon  his  head,  his  clothes  perversely  ill-suited 
to  his  form,  his  eyes  staring  in  directions  opposite  to  their 
intelligence  and  a  certain  odd  unsuitableness  pervading 
his  whole  figure.  Wherever  he  might  chance  to  be — 
whether  in  palace  or  cottage,  church  or  market,  on  land 
or  sea,  or  even  at  his  own  fireside — he  must  have  worn 
the  charateristic  expression  of  a  man  out  of  his  right 
place. 

"  This/'  inquired  he,  putting  his  question  in  the  form 
of  an  assertion — "  this  is  the  Central  Intel ligence-Office  ?" 

"  Even  so,"  answered  the  figure  at  the  desk,  turning 
another  leaf  of  his  volume.  He  then  looked  the  applicant 
in  the  face  and  said  briefly,  "Your  business  ?" 

"  I  want/'  said  the  latter,  with  tremulous  earnestness, 
"a  place." 

"  A  place!  And  of  what  nature?"  asked  the  intelligencer. 
"  There  are  many  vacant,  or  soon  to  be  so,  some  of  which 
will  probably  suit,  since  they  range  from  that  of  a  footman 
up  to  a  seat  at  the  council-board  or  in  the  cabinet  or  a 
throne  or  a  presidential  chair." 

The  stranger  stood  pondering  before  the  desk  with  an 
unquiet,  dissatisfied  air,  a  dull,  vague  pain  of  heart  ex 
pressed  by  a  slight  contortion  of  the  brow,  an  earnestness 
of  glance  that  asked  and  expected,  yet  continually  wavered, 
as  if  distrusting.  In  short,  he  evidently  wanted — not  in  a 
physical  or  intellectual  sense,  but  with  an  urgent  moral 
necessity  that  is  the  hardest  of  all  things  to  satisfy,  since 
it  knows  not  its  own  object. 

"  Ah  !  you  mistake  me,"  said  he,  at  length,  with  a  ges 
ture  of  nervous  impatience.  "Either  of  the  places  you 
mention,  indeed,  might  answer  my  purpose — or,  more 
probably,  none  of  them.  I  want  my  place — my  own  place, 
my  true  place  in  the  world,  my  proper  sphere,  my  thing  to 
do  which  nature  intended  me  to  perform  when  she  fashioned 
me  thus  awry,  and  which  I  have  vainly  sought  all  my  life 
time.  Whether  it  be  a  footman's  duty  or  a  king's  is  of 
little  consequence,  so  it  be  naturally  mine.  Can  you  help 
me  here  ?" 

"I  will  enter  your  application,"  answered  the  intelli- 


THE  INTELLIGENCE-OFFICE.  263 

gencer,  at  the  same  time  writing  a  few  lines  in  his  volume. 
"  But  to  undertake  such  a  business,  I  tell  you  frankly,  is 
quite  apart  from  the  ground  covered  by  my  official  duties. 
Ask  for  something  specific,  and  it  may  doubtless  be  negoti 
ated  for  you  on  your  compliance  with  the  conditions.  But 
were  I  to  go  further,  I  should  have  the  whole  population 
of  the  city  upon  my  shoulders,  since  far  the  greater  pro 
portion  of  them  are  more  or  less  in  your  predicament." 

The  applicant  sunk  into  a  tit  of  despondency,  and  passed 
out  of  the  door  without  again  lifting  his  eyes  ;  and  if  he 
died  of  the  disappointment,  he  was  probably  buried  in  the 
wrong  tomb,  inasmuch  as  the  fatality  of  such  people  never 
deserts  them,  and,  whether  alive  or  dead,  they  are  invaria 
bly  out  of  place. 

Almost  immediately  another  foot  was  heard  on  the 
threshold.  A  youth  entered  hastily,  and  threw  a  glance 
around  the  office  to  ascertain  whether  the  man  of  intelli 
gence  was  alone.  lie  then  approached  close  to  the  desk, 
blushed  like  a  maiden  and  seemed  at  a  loss  how  to  broach 
his  business. 

"  You  come  upon  an  affair  of  the  heart,"  said  the  official 
personage,  looking  into  him  through  his  mysterious  specta 
cles.  "  State  it  in  as  few  words  as  may  be." 

"  You  are  right,"  replied  the  youth.  *•'  I  have  a  heart  to 
dispose  of." 

"  You  seek  an  exchange  ?"  said  the  intelligencer.  "Fool 
ish  youth  !  Why  not  be  contented  with  your  own  ?  " 

"  Because,"  exclaimed  the  young  man,  losing  his  embar 
rassment  in  a  passionate  glow,  "  because  my  heart  burns 
me  with  an  intolerable  tire  ;  it  tortures  me  all  day  long 
with  yearnings  for  I  know  not  what,  and  feverish  throb- 
bings,  and  the  pangs  of  a  vague  sorrow,  and  it  awakens  me 
in  the  night-time  with  a  quake  when  there  is  nothing  to  be 
feared.  I  cannot  endure  it  any  longer.  It  were  wiser  to 
throw  away  such  a  heart,  even  if  it  brings  me  nothing  in 
return  ! " 

"  Oh,  very  well,"  said  the  man  of  office,  making  an  entry 
in  his  volume.  "Your  affair  will  be  easily  transacted. 
This  species  of  brokerage  makes  no  inconsiderable  part  of 
rny  business,  and  there  is  always  a  large  assortment  of  the 
article  to  select  from.  Here,  if  I  mistake  not,  comes  a 
pretty  fair  sample." 

Even  as  he  spoke  the  door  was  gently  and  slowly  thrust 


264  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

ajar,  affording  a  glimpse  of  the  slender  figure  of  a  young 
girl  who  as  she  timidly  entered  seemed  to  bring  the  light 
and  cheerfulness  of  tne  outer  atmosphere  into  the  some 
what  gloomy  apartment.  We  know  not  her  errand  there, 
nor  can  we  reveal  whether  the  young  man  gave  up  his  heart 
into  her  custody.  If  so,  the  arrangement  was  neither  bet 
ter  nor  worse  than  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred 
where  the  paralled  sensibilities  of  a  similar  age,  importu 
nate  affections  and  the  easy  satisfaction  of  characters  not 
deeply  conscious  of  themselves  supply  the  place  of  any 
profounder  sympathy. 

Not  always,  however,  was  the  agency  of  the  passions  and 
affections  an  office  of  so  little  trouble.  It  happened — rarely, 
indeed,  in  proportion  to  the  cases  that  came  under  an  ordin 
ary  rule,  but  still  it  did  happen — that  a  heart  was  occas 
ionally  brought  hither  of  such  exquisite  material,  so  del 
icately  attempered  and  so  curiously  wrought,  that  no  other 
heart  could  be  found  to  match  it.  It  might  almost  be  con 
sidered  a  misfortune,  in  a  worldly  point  of  view,  to  be  the 
possessor  of  such  a  diamond  of  the  purest  water,  since  in 
any  reasonable  probability  it  could  only  be  exchanged  for 
an  ordinary  pebble  or  a  bit  of  cunningly-manufactured 
glass,  01-,  at  least,  for  a  jewel  of  native  richness,  but  ill-set 
or  with  some  fatal  flaw  or  an  earthly  vein  running  through 
its  central  luster.  To  choose  another  figure,  it  is  sad  that 
hearts  which  have  their  well-spring  in  the  infinite  and  con 
tain  inexhaustible  sympathies  should  ever  be  doomed  to 
pour  themselves  into  shallow  vessels,  and  thus  lavish  their 
rich  affections  on  the  ground.  Strange  that  the  finer  and 
deeper  nature,  whether  in  man  or  woman,  while  possessed 
of  every  other  delicate  instinct,  should  so  often  lack  that 
most  invaluable  one  of  preserving  itself  from  contamination 
with  what  is  of  a  baser  kind!  Sometimes,  it  is  true,  the 
spiritual  fountain  is  kept  pure  by  a  wisdom  within  itself, 
and  sparkles  into  the  light  of  heaven  without  a  stain  from 
the  earthly  strata  through  which  it  had  gushed  upward. 
And  sometimes,  even  here  on  earth,  the  pure  mingles  with 
the  pure  and  the  inexhaustible  is  recompensed  with  the  in 
finite.  But  these  miracles,  though  he  should  claim  the 
credit  of  them,  are  far  beyond  the  scope  of  such  a  super 
ficial  agent  in  human  affairs  as  the  figure  in  the  mysterous 
spectacles. 

Again  the  door  was  opened,  admitting  the  bustle  of  the 


THE  INTELLIGENCE-OFFICE.  265 

city  with  a  fresher  reverberation  into  the  intelligence-office. 
Now  entered  a  man  of  woebegone  and  downcast  look;  it 
was  such  an  aspect  as  if  he  had  lost  the  very  soul  out  of 
his  body,  and  had  traversed  all  the  world  over,  searching 
in  the  dust  of  the  highways,  and  along  the  shady  footpaths, 
and  beneath  the  leaves  of  the  forest,  and  among  the  sands 
of  the  seashore,  in  hopes  to  recover  it  again.  He  had  bent 
an  anxious  glance  along  the  pavement  of  the  street  as  he 
came-  hitherward;  he  looked,  also,  in  the  angle  of  the  door 
step  and  upon  the  floor  of  the  room,  and  finally,  coming  up 
to  the  man  of  intelligence,  he  gazed  through  the  inscruta 
ble  spectacles  which  the  latter  wore,  as  if  the  lost  treasure 
might  be  hidden  within  his  eyes. 

"I  have  lost —     "  he  began,  and  then  he  paused. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  intelligencer;  "  I  see  that  you  have  lost. 
But  what?" 

"  I  have  lost  a  precious  jewel,''  replied  the  unfortunate 
person,  "  the  like  of  which  is  not  to  be  found  among  any 
prince's  treasures.  While  I  possessed  it,  the  contemplation 
of  it  was  my  sole  and  sufficient  happiness.  No  price  should 
have  purchased  it  of  me,  but  it  has  fallen  from  my  bosom, 
where  I  wore  it,  in  my  careless  wanderings  about  the  city." 

After  causing  the  stranger  to  describe  the  marks  of  his 
lost  jewel,  the  intelligencer  opened  a  drawer  of  the  oaken 
cabinet  which  has  been  mentioned  as  forming  a  part  of  the 
furniture  of  the  room.  Here  were  deposited  whatever 
articles  had  been  picked  up  in  the  streets,  until  the  right 
owners  should  claim  them.  It  was  a  strange  and  hetero 
geneous  collection.  Not  the  least  remarkable  part  of  it 
was  a  great  number  of  wedding-rings,  each  one  of  which 
had  been  riveted  upon  the  finger  with  holy  vows  and  all 
the  mystic  potency  that  the  most  solemn  rites  could  attain, 
but  had,  nevertheless,  proved  too  slippery  for  the  wearer's 
vigilance.  The  gold  of  some  was  worn  thin,  betokening 
the  attrition  of  years  of  wedlock;  others  glittering  from 
the  jeweller's  shop,  must  have  been  lost  within  the  honey 
moon.  There  were  ivory  tablets,  the  leaves  scribbled  over 
with  sentiments  that  had  been  the  deepest  truths  of  the 
writer's  earlier  years,  but  which  were  now  quite  obliterated 
from  his  memory.  So  scrupulously  were  articles  preserved 
in  this  depository  that  not  even  withered  flowers  were  re 
jected;  white  roses  and  blush-roses  and  moss-roses — fit 
emblems  of  virgin  purity  and  shamefacedness — which  had 


MOSSfiS  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

been  lost  or  flung  away  and  trampled  into  the  pollution 
of  the  streets — locks  of  hair  the  golden  and  the  glossy  dark, 
the  long  tresses  of  woman  and  the  crisp  curls  of  man,  sig 
nified  that  lovers  were  now  and  then  so  heedless  of  the 
faith  entrusted  to  them  as  to  drop  its  symbol  from  the 
treasure-place  of  the  bosom.  Many  of  these  things  were 
imbued  with  perfumes,  and  perhaps  a  sweet  scent  had  de 
parted  from  the  lives  of  their  former  possessors  ever  since 
they  had  so  willfully  or  negligently  lost  them.  Here  were 
gold  pencil-cases,  little  ruby  hearts  with  golden  arrows 
through  them,  bosom-pins,  pieces  of  coin,  and  small  arti 
cles  of  every  description,  comprising  nearly  all  that  have 
been  lost  since  a  long  while  ago.  Most  of  them,  doubtless, 
had  a  history  and  a  meaning,  if  there  were  time  to  search 
it  out  and  room  to  tell  it.  Whoever  has  missed  anything 
valuable,  whether  out  of  his  heart,  mind  or  pocket, 
would  do  well  to  make  inquiry  at  the  Central  Intelligence- 
Office. 

And  in  the  corner  of  one  of  the  drawers  of  the  oaken 
cabinet,  after  considerable  research,  was  found  a  great 
pearl  looking  like  the  soul  of  celestial  purity  congealed 
and  polished. 

'•'  There  is  my  jewel — my  very  pearl!"  cried  the  stranger, 
almost  beside  himself  with  rapture.  "Ik  is  mine!  Give 
it  me  this  moment,  or  I  shall  perish!" 

"  I  perceive,"  said  the  man  of  intelligence,  examining  it 
more  closely,  "that  this  is  the  pearl  of  great  price." 

"The  very  same,"  answered  the  stranger.  "Judge, 
then,  of  my  misery  at  losing  it  out  of  my  bosom!  Ke- 
store  it  to  me!  I  must  not  live  without  it  an  instant 
longer!" 

"  Pardon  me,"  rejoined  the  intelligencer,  calmly;  "  you 
ask  what  is  beyond  my  duty.  This  pearl,  as  you  well 
know,  is  held  upon  a  peculiar  tenure,  and,  having  once  let 
it  escape  from  your  keeping,  you  have  no  greater  claim  to 
it — nay,  not  so  great — as  any  other  person.  I  cannot  give 
it  back." 

Nor  could  the  entreaties  of  the  miserable  man — who  saw 
before  his  eyes  the  jewel  of  his  life,  without  the  power  to 
reclaim  it — soften  the  heart  of  this  stern  being  impassive 
to  human  sympathy,  though  exercising  such  an  apparent 
influence  over  human  fortunes.  Finally  the  loser  of  the 
inestimable  pearl  clutched  his  hands  among  his  hair  and 


THE  INTELLIGENCE-OFFICE.  267 

ran  madly  forth  into  the  world,  which  was  affrighted  at 
his  desperate  looks. 

There  passed  him  on  the  doorstep  a  fashionable  young 
gentleman  whose  business  was  to  inquire  for  a  damask  rose 
bud,  the  gift  of  his  lady-love,  which  he  had  lost  out  of  his 
button-hole  within  an  hour  after  receiving  it.  So  various 
were  the  errands  of  those  who  visited  this  central  ofticc 
where  all  human  wishes  seemed  to  be  made  known,  and, 
so  far  as  destiny  would  allow,  negotiated  to  their  fulfill 
ment. 

The  next  that  entered  was  a  man  beyond  the  middle  age 
bearing  the  look  of  one  who  knew  the  world  and  his  own 
course  in  it.  He  had  just  alighted  from  a  handsome  pri 
vate  carriage,  which  had  orders  to  wait  in  the  street  while 
its  owner  transacted  his  business.  This  person  came  up  to 
the  desk  with  a  quick,  determined  step,  and  looked  the  in 
telligencer  in  the  face  with  a  resolute  eye,  though,  at  the 
same  time,  some  secret  trouble  gleamed  from  it  in  red  and 
dusky  light. 

"  I  have  an  estate  to  dispose  of,"  said  he,  with  a  brevity 
that  seemed  characteristic. 

"  Describe  it,"  said  the  intelligencer. 

The  applicant  proceeded  to  give  the  boundaries  of  his 
property,  its  nature,  comprising  tillage,  pasture,  woodland 
and  pleasure-grounds  in  ample  circuit,  together  with  a  man 
sion-house  in  the  construction  of  which  it  had  been  his 
object  to  realize  a  castle  in  the  air,  hardening  its  shadowy 
walls  into  granite  and  rendering  its  visionary  splendor  per 
ceptible  to  the  awakened  eye.  Judging  from  his  descrip 
tion,  it  was  beautiful  enough  to  vanish  like  a  dream,  yet 
substantial  enough  to  endure  for  centuries,  lie  spoke,  too, 
of  the  gorgeous  fuiniture,  the  refinements  of  upholstery, 
and  all  the  luxurious  artifices  that  combined  to  render  this 
a  residence  where  life  might  flow  onward  in  a  stream  of 
golden  days  undisturbed  by  the  rugged  ness  which  fate  loves 
to  fling  into  it. 

"  I  am  a  man  of  strong  will,"  said  he,  in  conclusion, 
"and  at  my  first  setting  out  in  life  as  a  poor  unfriended 
youth  I  resolved  to  make  myself  the  possessor  of  such 
a  mansion  and  estate  as  this,  together  with  the  abundant 
revenue  necessary  to  uphold  it.  "l  have  succeeded  to  the 
extent  of  my  utmost  wish,  and  this  is  the  estate  which  I 
have  now  concluded  to  dispose  of." 


268  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"'(  And  your  terms?"  asked  the  intelligencer,  after  taking 
down  the  particulars  with  which  the  stranger  had  supplied 
him. 

"  Easy — abundantly  easy,"  answered  the  successful  man, 
smiling,  but  with  a  stern  and  almost  frightful  contraction 
of  the  brow,  as  if  to  quell  an  inward  pang.  "I  have  been 
engaged  in  various  sorts  of  business — a  distiller,  a  trader 
to  Africa,  an  East  India  merchant,  a  speculator  in  the 
stocks — and  in  the  course  of  these  affairs  have  contracted 
an  incumbance  of  a  certain  nature.  The  purchaser  of  the 
estate  shall  merely  be  required  to  assume  this  burden  to 
himself." 

"I  understand  you," said  the  man  of  intelligence,  put 
ting  his  pen  behind  his  ear.  "I  fear  that  no  bargain  can 
be  negotiated  on  these  conditions.  Very  probably  the  next 
possessor  may  acquire  the  estate  with  a  similar  incum- 
brance,  but  it  will  be  of  his  own  contracting,  and  will  not 
lighten  your  burden  in  the  least." 

"  And  am  I  to  live  on,"  fiercely  exclaimed  the  stranger, 
"  with  the  dirt  of  these  accursed  acres  and  the  granite  of 
this  infernal  mansion  crushing  down  my  soul?  How  if  I 
should  turn  the  edifice  into  an  almshouse  or  a  hospital  or 
tear  it  down  and  build  a  church?" 

"  You  can  at  least  make  the  experiment,"  said  the  in 
telligencer,  "but  the  whole  matter  is  one  which  you  must 
settle  for  yourself." 

The  man  of  deplorable  success  withdrew  and  got  into 
his  coach,  which  rattled  off  lightly  over  the  wooden  pave 
ments,  though  laden  with  the  weight  of  much  land,  a 
stately  house  and  ponderous  heaps  of  gold,  all  compressed 
into  an  evil  conscience. 

There  now  appeared  many  applicants  for  places.  Among 
the  most  noteworthy  of  whom  was  a  small,  smoke-dried 
figure  who  gave  himself  out  to  be  one  of  the  bad  spirits 
that  had  waited  upon  Dr.  Faustus  in  his  laboratory.  He 
pretended  to  show  a  certificate  of  character,  which,  he 
averred,  had  been  given  him  by  that  famous  necromancer, 
and  countersigned  by  several  masters  whom  he  had  subse 
quently  served. 

"  I  am  afraid,  my  good  friend,"  observed  the  intelli 
gencer,  "  that  your  chance  of  getting  a  service  is  but  poor. 
Nowadays  men  act  the  evil  spirit  for  themselves  and  for 
their  neighbors,  and  play  the  part  more  effectually  than 
ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  of  your  fraternity." 


THE  INTELLIGENCE-OFFICE.  269 

But  just  as  the  poor  fiend  was  assuming  a  vaporous  con 
sistency,  being  about  to  vanish  through  the  floor  in  sad 
disappointment  and  chagrin,  the  editor  of  a  political  news 
paper  chanced  to  enter  the  office  in  quest  of  a  scribbler  of 
party  paragraphs.  The  former  servant  of  Dr.  Faustus, 
with  some  misgivings  as  to  his  sufficiency  of  venom,  was 
allowed  to  try  his  hand  in  this  capacity.  Xext  appeared, 
likewise  seeking  a  service,  the  mysterious  Man  in  Red  who 
had  aided  Bonaparte  in  his  ascent  to  imperial  power.  He 
was  examined  as  to  his  qualifications  by  an  aspiring  politi 
cian,  but  finally  rejected  as  lacking  familiarity  with  the 
cunning  tactics  of  the  present  day. 

People  continued  to  succeed  each  other  with  as  much 
briskness  as  if  everybody  turned  aside  out  of  the  roar  and 
tumult  of  the  city  to  record  here  some  want  or  superfluity 
or  desire.  Some  had  goods  or  possessions  of  which  they 
wished  to  negotiate  the  sale.  A  China  merchant  had  lost 
his  health  by  a  long  residence  in  that  wasting  climate; 
he  very  liberally  offered  his  disease,  and  his  wealth  along 
with  it,  to  any  physician  who  would  rid  him  of  both  to 
gether.  A  soldier  offered  his  wreath  of  laurels  for  as 
good  a  leg  as  that  which  it  had  cost  him  on  the  battle-field. 
One  poor  weary  wretch  desired  nothing  but  to  be  accomo- 
dated  with  any  creditable  method  of  laying  down  his  life, 
for  misfortune  and  pecuniary  troubles  had  so  subdued  his 
spirits  that  he  could  no  longer  conceive  the  possibility  of 
happiness,  nor  had  the  heart  to  try  it.  Nevertheless, 
happening  to  overhear  some  conversation  in  the  intelli 
gence-office  respecting  wealth  to  be  rapidly  accumulated 
by  a  certain  mode  of  speculation,  he  resolved  to  live  out 
this  one  other  experiment  of  better  fortune.  Many  persons 
desired  to  exchange  their  youthful  vices  for  others  better 
suited  to  the  gravity  of  advancing  age;  a  few,  we  are  glad 
to  say,  made  earnest  efforts  to  exchange  vice  for  virtue, 
and,  hard  as  the  bargain  was,  succeeded  in  effecting  it. 
But  it  is  remarkable  that  what  all  were  the  least  willing 
to  give  it  up,  even  on  the  most  advantageous  terms,  were 
the  habits,  the  oddities,  the  characteristic  traits,  the  little 
ridiculous  indulgences  somewhere  between  faults  and  fol 
lies,  of  which  nobody  but  themselves  could  understand  the 
fascination. 

The  great  folio  in  which  the  man  of  intelligence  recorded 
all  these  freaks  of  idle  hearts  and  aspirations  of  deep  hearts 


270  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

and  desperate  longings  of  miserable  hearts  and  evil  prayers 
of  perverted  hearts  would  be  curious  reading  were  it  possi 
ble  to  obtain  it  for  publication.  Human  character  in  its 
individuald  evelopments,  human  nature  in  the  mass,  may 
best  be  studied  in  its  wishes;  and  this  was  the  record  of 
them  all.  There  was  an  endless  diversity  of  mode  and 
circumstance,  yet,  withal,  such  a  similarity  in  the  real 
groundwork  that  any  one  page  of  the  volume,  whether 
written  in  the  days  before  the  flood,  or  the  yesterday  that 
is  just  gone  by,  or  to  be  written  on  the  morrow  that  is  close 
at  hand  or  a  thousand  ages  hence,  might  serve  as  a  speci 
men  of  the  whole.  Not  but  that  there  were  wild  sallies  of 
fantasy  that  could  scarcely  occur  to  more  than  one  man's 
brain,  whether  reasonable  or  lunatic.  The  strangest  wishes 
— yet  most  incident  to  men  who  had  gone  deep  into  scientific 
pursuits  and  attained  a  high  intellectual  stage,  though  not 
the  loftiest — were  to  contend  with  nature  and  wrest  from 
her  some  secret  and  some  power  which  she  had  seen  fit 
to  withhold  from  mortal  grasp.  She  loves  to  delude  her 
aspiring  students  and  mock  them  with  mysteries  that  seem 
but  just  beyond  their  utmost  reach.  To  concoct  new 
minerals,  to  produce  new  forms  of  vegetable  life,  to  create 
an  insect,  if  nothing  higher  in  the  living  scale,  is  a  sort  of 
wish  that  lias  often  reveled  in  the  breast  of  a  man  of 
science.  An  astronomer  who  lived  far  more  among  the 
distant  worlds  of  space  than  in  this  lower  sphere  recorded 
a  wish  to  behold  the  opposite  side  of  the  moon,  which, 
unless  the  system  of  the  firmament  be  reversed,  she  can 
never  turn  toward  the  earth.  On  the  same  page  of  the 
volume  was  written  the  wish  of  a  little  child  to  have  the 
stars  for  playthings. 

The  most  ordinary  wish  that  was  written  down  with 
wearisome  recurrence  was,  of  course,  for  wealth,  wealth, 
wealth,  in  sums  from  a  few  shillings  up  to  unreckonable 
thousands.  But,  in  reality,  this  often-repeated  expression 
covered  as  many  different  desires.  Wealth  is  the  golden 
essence  of  the  outward  world,  embodying  almost  everything 
that  exists  beyond  the  limits  of  the  soul,  and  therefore  it  is 
the  natural  yearning  for  the  life  in  the  midst  of  which  we 
find  ourselves,  and  of  which  gold  is  the  condition  of  enjoy 
ment,  that  men  abridge  into  this  general  wish.  Here  and 
there,  it  is  true,  the  volume  testified  to  some  heart  so  per 
verted  as  to  desire  gold  for  its  own  sake.  Many  wished  for 


THE  INTELLIGENCE-OFFICE.  271 

p0wer — a  strange  desire  indeed,,  since  it  is  but  another  form 
of  slavery.  Old  people  wished  for  the  delights  of  youth;  a 
fop,  for  a  fashionable  coat;  an  idle  reader,  for  a  new  novel; 
a  versifier,  for  a  rhyme  to  some  stubborn  word;  a  painter, 
for  Titian's  secret  of  coloring;  a  prince  for  a  cottage;  a 
republican  for  a  kingdom  and  a  palace;  a  libertine  for  his 
neighbor's  wife;  a  man  of  palate  for  green  peas;  and  a 
poor  man,  for  a  crust  of  bread.  The  ambitious  desires  of 
public  men,  elsewhere  so  craftily  concealed,  were  here  ex 
pressed  openly  and  boldly  side  by  side  with  the  unselfish 
wishes  of  the  philanthropist  for  the  welfare  of  the  race,  so 
beautiful,  so  comforting,  in  contrast  with  the  egotism  that 
continually  weighed  self  against  the  world.  Into  the 
darker  secrets  of  the  book  of  wishes  we  will  not  penetrate. 

It  would  be  an  instructive  employment  for  a  student  of 
mankind,  perusing  this  volume  carefully  and  comparing 
its  records  with  men's  perfected  designs  as  expressed  in 
their  deeds  and  daily  life,  to  ascertain  how  far  the  one  ac 
corded  with  the  other.  Undoubtedly,  in  most  cases,  the 
correspondence  would  be  found  remote.  The  holy  and 
generous  wish  that  rises  like  incense  from  a  pure  heart 
toward  heaven  often  lavishes  its  sweet  perfume  on  the  blast 
of  evil  times.  The  foul,  selfish,  murderous  wish  that 
steams  forth  from  a  corrupted  heart  often  passes  into  the 
spiritual  atmosphere  without  being  concreted  into  an 
earthly  deed.  Yet  this  volume  is  probably  truer,  as  a  rep 
resentation  of  the  human  heart,  than  is  the  living  drama 
of  action  as  it  evolves  around  us.  There  is  more  of  good 
and  more  of  evil  in  it,  more  redeeming  points  of  the  bad 
and  more  errors  of  the  virtuous,  higher  upsoarings  and 
baser  degradation  of  the  soul — in  short,  a  more  perplexing 
amalgamation  of  vice  and  virtue — than  we  witness  in  the 
outward  world.  Decency  and  external  conscience  often 
produce  a  far  fairer  outside  than  is  warranted  by  the  stains 
within.  And  be  it  owned,  on  the  other  hand,  that  a  man 
seldom  repeats  to  his  nearest  friend,  any  more  than  he 
realizes  in  act,  the  purest  wishes  which  at  some  blessed  time 
or  other  have  arisen  from  the  depths  of  his  nature  and 
witnessed  for  him  in  this  volume.  Yet  there  is  enough  on 
every  leaf  to  make  the  good  man  shudder  lor  his  own  wild 
and  idle  wishes,  as  well  as  for  the  sinner  whose  whole  life 
is  the  incarnation  of  a  wicked  desire. 

But  again  the  door  is  opened  and  we  hear  the  tumultuous 


272  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

stir  of  the  world,  a  deep  and  awful  sound  expressing  in 
another  form  some  portion  of  what  is  written  in  the  volume 
that  lies  before  the  man  of  intelligence.  A  grandfatherly 
personage  tottered  hastily  into  the  office  with  such  an  earn 
estness  in  his  infirm  alacrity  that  his  white  hair  floated 
backward  as  he  hurried  up  to  the  desk,  while  his  dim  eyes 
caught  a  momentary  luster  from  his  vehemence  of  pur 
pose.  This  venerable  figure  explained  that  he  was  in  search 
of  to-morrow. 

"  I  have  spent  all  my  life  in  pursuit  of  it,"  added  the 
sage  old  gentleman,  "being  assured  that  to-morrow  has 
some  vast  benefit  or  other  in  store  for  me.  But  I  am  now 
getting  a  little  in  years  and  must  make  haste,  for,  unless  I 
overtake  to-morrow  soon,  I  begin  to  be  afraid  it  will  finally 
escape  me." 

"  This  fugitive  to-morrow,  my  venerable  friend,"  said  the 
man  of  intelligence,  "is  a  stray  child  of  Time  and  is  flying 
from  his  father  into  the  region  of  the  infinite.  Continue 
your  pursuit  and  you  will  doubtless  come  up  with  him; 
but,  as  to  the  earthly  gifts  which  you  expect,  he  has  scat 
tered  them  all  among  a  throng  of  yesterdays." 

Obliged  to  content  himself  with  this  enigmatical  response, 
the  grandsire  hastened  forth  with  a  quick  clatter  of  his 
staff  upon  the  floor,  and  as  he  disappeared  a  little  boy 
scampered  through  the  door  in  chase  of  a  butterfly  which 
had  got  astray  amid  the  barren  sunshine  of  the  city.  Had 
the  old  gentleman  been  shre\yder  he  might  have  detected 
to-morrow  under  the  semblance  of  that  gaudy  insect.  The 
golden  butterfly  glistened  through  the  shadowy  apartment 
and  brushed  its  wings  against  the  book  of  wishes  and  flut 
tered  forth  again  with  the  child  still  in  pursuit. 

A  man  now  entered  in  neglected  attire,  with  the  aspect 
of  a  thinker,  but  somewhat  too  rough-hewn  and  brawny  for 
a  scholar.  His  face  was  full  of  sturdy  vigor,  with  some 
finer  and  keener  attribute  beneath;  though  harsh  at  first, 
it  was  tempered  with  the  glow  of  a  large,  warm  heart  which 
had  force  enough  to  heat  his  powerful  intellect  through 
and  through.  He  advanced  to  the  intelligencer  and  looked 
at  him  with  a  glance  of  such  stern  sincerity  that,  perhaps, 
few  secrets  were  beyond  its  scope. 

"  I  seek  for  Truth,"  said  he. 

"  It  is  precisely  the  most  rare  pursuit  that  has  ever  come 
under  my  cognizance,"  replied  the  intelligencer,  as  he 


THE  INTELLIGENCE-OFFICE.  273 

made  the  new  inscription  in  his  volume.  "  Most  men  seek 
to  impose  some  cunning  falsehood  npon  themselves  for 
truth.  But  I  can  lend  no  help  to  your  researches;  you 
must  achieve  the  miracle  for  yourself.  At  some  fortunate 
moment  you  may  find  Truth  at  your  side,  or  perhaps  she 
may  be  mistily  discerned  far  in  advance  or  possibly  behind 
you." 

"  Not  behind  me,"  said  the  seeker,  "  for  I  have  left 
nothing  on  my  track  without  a  thorough  investigation. 
She  Hits  before  me,  passing  now  through  a  naked  solitude 
and  now  mingling  with  the  throng  of  a  popular  assembly, 
and  now  writing  with  the  pen  of  a  French  philosopher 
and  now  standing  at  the  altar  of  an  old  cathedral  in  the 
guise  of  a  Catholic  priest  performing  the  high  mass.  Oh, 
weary  search!  But  I  must  not  falter,  and  surely  my  heart- 
deep  quest  of  Truth  shall  avail  at  last." 

He  paused  and  fixed  his  eyes  upon  the  intelligencer  with 
a  depth  of  investigation  that  seemed  to  hold  commerce 
with  the  inner  nature  of  this  being,  wholly  regardless  of 
his  external  development. 

"  And  what  are  you?"  said  he.  "  It  will  not  satisfy  me 
to  point  to  this  fantastic  show  of  an  intelligence-office  and 
this  mockery  of  business.  Tell  me  what  is  beneath  it,  and 
what  your  real  agency  in  life  and  your  influence  upon 
mankind?" 

"  Yours  is  a  mind,"  answered  the  man  of  intelligence, 
"  before  which  the  forms  and  fantasies  that  conceal  the 
inner  idea  from  the  multitude  vanish  at  once  and  leave  the 
naked  reality  beneath.  Know,  then,  the  secret.  My  agency 
in  worldly  action;  my  connection  with  the  press  and  tumult 
and  intermingling  and  development  of  human  affairs,  is 
merely  delusive.  The  desire  of  man's  heart  does  for  him 
whatever  I  seem  to  do.  I  am  no  minister  of  action,  but 
the  Recording  Spirit." 

What  further  secrets  were  then  spoken  remains  a  mys 
tery,  inasmuch  as  the  roar  of  the  city,  the  bustle  of  human 
business,  the  outcry  of  the  jostling  masses,  the  rush  and 
tumult  of  man's  life  in  its  noisy  and  brief  career,  arose  so 
high  that  it  drowned  the  words  of  these  two  talkers. 
And  whether  they  stood  talking  in  the  moon  or  in  Vanity 
Fair,  or  in  a  city  of  this  actual  world,  is  more  than  I  can 
say. 


274  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 


ROGER  MALVIN'S  BURIAL 


ONE  of  the  few  incidents  of  Indian  warefare  naturally 
susceptible  of  the  moonlight  of  romance  was  that  expedition 
undertaken  for  the  defense  of  the  frontiers  in  the  year  1725 
which  resulted  in  the  well-remembered  "  Lovell's  Fight." 
Imagination,  by  casting  certain  circumstances  judiciously 
into  the  shade,  may  see  much  to  admire  in  the  heroism  of 
a  little  band  who  gave  battle  to  twice  their  number  in  the 
heart  of  the  enemy's  country.  The  open  bravery  displayed 
by  both  parties  was  in  accordance  with  civilized  ideas  of 
valor,  and  chivalry  itself  might  not  blush  to  record  the 
deeds  of  one  or  two  individuals.  The  battle,  though  so  fatal 
to  those  who  fought,  was  not  unfortunate  in  its  consequences 
to  the  country,  for  it  broke  the  strength  of  a  tribe  and  con 
duced  to  the  peace  which  subsisted  during  several  ensuing 
years.  History  and  tradition  are  unusually  minute  in  their 
memorials  of  this  affair,  and  the  captain  of  a  scou ting-party 
of  frontiermen  has  acquired  as  actual  a  military  renown  as 
many  a  victorious  leader  of  thousands.  Some  of  the  inci 
dents  contained  in  the  following  pages  will  be  recognized, 
notwithstanding  the  substitution  of  fictitious  names,  by  such 
as  have  heard  from  old  men's  lips  the  fate  of  the  few  com 
batants  who  were  in  a  condition  to  retreat  after  "  Lovell's 
Fight." 

"The  early  sunbeams  hovered  cheerfully  upon  the  treetops 
beneath  which  two  weary  and  wounded  men  had  stretched 
their  limbs  the  night  before.  Their  bed  of  withered  oak- 
leaves  was  strewn  upon  the  small  level  space  at  the  foot  of 
a  rock  situated  near  the  summit  of  one  of  the  gentle  swells 
by  which  the  face  of  the  country  is  there  diversified.  The 
mass  of  granite  rearing  its  smooth;  flat  surface  fifteen  or 


ROGER  MAL  YIN'S  B URIAL.  275 

twenty  feet  above  their  heads  was  not  unlike  a  gigantic 
gravestone,  upon  which  the  veins  seemed  to  form  an  inscrip 
tion  of  forgotten  characters.  On  a  tract  of  several  acres 
around  this  rock  oaks  and  other  hardwood  trees  had  sup 
plied  the  place  of  the  pines  which  were  the  usual  growth  of 
the  land,,  and  a  young  and  vigorous  sapling  stood  close  be 
side  the  travelers. 

"  The  severe  wound  of  the  elder  man  had  probably  de 
prived  him  of  sleep,  for  so  soon  as  the  first  ray  of  sunshine 
rested  on  the  top  of  the  highest  tree  he  reared  himself  pain 
fully  from  his  recumbent  posture  and  sat  erect.  The  deep 
lines  of  his  countenance  and  the  scattered  gray  of  his  hair 
marked  him  as  past  the  middle  age,  but  his  muscular  frame 
would,  but  for  the  effects  of  his  wound,  have  been  as  capable 
of  sustaining  fatigue  as  in  the  early  vigor  of  life.  Languor 
and  exhaustion  now  sat  upon  his  haggard  features,  and  the 
despairing  glance  which  he  sent  forward  through  the  depths 
of  the  forest  proved  his  own  conviction  that  his  pilgrimage 
was  at  an  end.  He  next  turned  his  eyes  to  the  companion 
who  reclined  by  his  side.  The  youth — for  he  had  scarcely 
attained  the  years  of  manhood — lay  with  his  head  upon  his 
arm  in  the  embrace  of  an  unquiet  sleep  which  a  thrill  of 
pain  from  his  wounds  seemed  each  moment  on  the  point  of 
breaking.  His  right  hand  grasped  a  musket,  and,  to  judge 
from  the  violent  action  of  his  features,  his  slumbers  were 
bringing  back  a  vision  of  the  conflict  of  which  he  was  one 
of  the  few  survivors.  A  shout — deep  ami  loud  in  his  dream 
ing  fancy — found  its  way  in  an  imperfect  murmur  to  his 
lips,  and,  starting  even  at  the  slight  sound  of  his  own  voice, 
he  suddenly  awoke.  The  first  act  of  reviving  recollection 
was  to  make  anxious  inquiries  respecting  the  condition  of 
his  wounded  fellow-traveler. 

"  The  latter  shook  his  head.  '  Reuben,  my  boy,'  said 
he,  '  this  rock  beneath  which  we  sit  will  serve  for  an  old 
hunter's  gravestone.  There  is  many  and  many  a  long 
mile  of  howling  wilderness  before  us  yet;  nor  would  it 
avail  me  anything  if  the  smoke  of  my  own  chimney  were 
but  on  the  other  side  of  that  swell  of  land.  The  Indian 
bullet  was  deadlier  than  I  thought.' 


"  '  You  are  weary  with  our  three  days'  travel/  replied  the 
youth,  'and  a  little  longer  rest  will  recruit  you.  Sit  you 
here  while  I  search  the  woods  for  the  herbs  and  roots  that 
must  be  our  sustenance,  and  having  eaten  you  shall  lean 


276  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

on  me  and  we  will  turn  our  faces  homeward.  I  doubt 
not  that  with  my  help  you  can  attain  to  some  one  of  the 
frontier  garrisons/ 

"  '  There  is  not  two  days"  life  in  me,  Reuben/  said  the 
other,  calmly,  '  and  I  will  no  longer  burden  you  with  my 
useless  body  when  you  can  scarcely  support  your  own. 
Your  wounds  are  deep  and  your  strength  is  failing  fast; 
yet  if  you  hasten  onward  alone  you  may  be  preserved. 
For  me  there  is  no  hope  and  I  will  await  death  here/ 

"  '  If  it  must  be  so  I  will  remain  and  watch  by  you/  said 
Reuben,  resolutely. 

"  '  No,  my  son — no/ rejoined  his  companion.  '  Let  the 
wish  of  a  dying  man  have  weight  with  you;  give  me  one 
grasp  of  your  hand  and  get  you  hence.  Think  you  that 
my  last  moments  will  be  eased  by  the  thought  that  I  leave 
you  to  die  a  more  lingering  death?  I  have  loved  you  like 
a  father,  Reuben,  and  at  a  time  like  this  I  should  have 
something  of  a  father's  authority.  I  charge  you  to  be  gone 
that  1  may  die  in  peace/ 

"  '  And  because  you  have  been  a  father  to  me  should  I, 
therefore,  leave  you  to  perish  and  to  lie  unburied  in  the 
wilderness?'  exclaimed  the  youth.  'No!  If  your  end 
be,  in  truth,  approaching,  I  will  watch  by  you  and  receive 
your  parting  words.  I  will  dig  a  grave  here  by  the  rock, 
in  which,  if  my  weakness  overcome  me,  we  will  rest  to 
gether;  or  if  heaven  gives  me  strength  I  will  seek  my  way 
home/ 

"  '  In  the  cities  and  wherever  men  dwell/  replied  the 
other,  'they  bury  their  dead  in  the  earth;  they  hide  them 
from  the  sight  of  the  living;  but  here,  where  no  step  may 
pass  perhaps  for  a  hundred  years,  wherefore  should  I  not 
rest  beneath  the  open  sky,  covered  only  by  the  oak-leaves 
when  the  autumn  winds  shall  strew  them?  And  for  a 
monument  here  is  this  gray  rock  on  which  my  dying  hand 
shall  carve  the  name  of  Roger  Malvin,  and  the  traveler  in 
days  to  come  will  know  that  here  sleeps  a  hunter  and  a 
warrior.  Tarry  not,  then,  for  a  folly  like  this,  but  hasten 
away — if  not  for  your  own  sake,  for  hers  who  will  else  be 
desolate/ 

"  Malvin  spoke  the  last  few  words  in  a  faltering  voice,  and 
their  effect  upon  his  companion  was  strongly  visible, 
They  reminded  him  that  there  were  other  and  less  ques 
tionable  duties  tluii)  that  Q£  glaring  the  fate  of  a  man 


ROGER  MAL  VIN  'S  B  URIAL.  277 

whom  his  death  could  not  benefit.  Nor  can  it  be  affirmed 
that  no  selfish  feeling  strove  to  enter  Reuben's  heart, 
though  the  consciousness  made  him  more  earnestly  resist 
his  companion's  entreaties. 

''  '  How  terrible  to  wait  the  slow  approach  of  death  in 
this  solitude  ! '  exclaimed  he.  '  A  brave  man  does  not 
shrink  in  the  battle,  and  when  friends  stand  round  the  bed 
even  women  may  die  composedly;  but  here ' 

"'I  shall  not  shrink  even  here,  Reuben  Bourne/  inter 
rupted  Malvin.  '  I  am  a  man  of  no  weak  heart;  and  if  I 
were  there  is  a  surer  support  than  that  of  earthly  friends. 
You  are  young  and  life  is  dear  to  you.  Your  last  moments 
will  need  comfort  far  more  than  mine;  and  when  you  have 
laid  me  in  the  earth  and  are  alone  and  night  is  settling  on 
the  forest  you  will  feel  all  the  bitterness  of  the  death  that 
may  now  be  escaped.  But  1  will  urge  no  selfish  motive  to 
your  generous  nature.  Leave  me  for  my  sake,  that  having, 
said  a  prayer  for  your  safety,  I  may  have  space  to  settle 
my  account  undisturbed  by  worldly  sorrows/ 

"  f  And  your  daughter  !  How  shall  I  dare  to  meet  her 
eye?'  exclaimed  Reuben.  'She  will  ask  the  fate  of  her 
father,  whose  life  I  vowed  to  defend  with  my  own.  Must 
I  tell  her  that  lie  traveled  three  days'  march  with  me  from 
the  field  of  battle  and  that  then  1  left  him  to  perish  in  the 
wilderness  ?  Were  it  not  better  to  lie  down  and  die  by 
your  side  than  to  return  safe  and  say  this  to  Dorcas  ?' 

"  •  Tell  my  daughter/  said  Roger  Malvin,  '  that  though 
yourself  sore  wounded  and  weak  and  weary,  you  led  my 
tottering  footsteps  many  a  mile  and  left  me  only  at  my 
earnest  entreaty  because  I  would  not  have  your  blood  upon 
my  soul.  Tell  her  that  through  pain  and  danger  you  were 
faithful,  and  that  if  your  life-blood  could  have  saved  me  it 
would  have  flowed  to  its  last  drop.  And  tell  her  that  you 
will  be  something  dearer  than  a  father,  and  that  my  bless 
ing  is  with  you  both,  and  that  my  dying  eyes  can  see  a  long 
and  pleasant  path  in  which  you  will  journey  together/ 

''As  Malvin  spoke  he  almost  raised  himself  from  the 
ground,  and  the  energy  of  his  concluding  words  seemed  to 
till  the  wild  and  lonely  forest  with  a  vision  of  happiness. 
But  when  he  sank  exhausted  upon  his  bed  of  oak-leaves, 
the  light  which  had  kindled  in  Reuben's  eye  was  quenched. 
He  felt  as  if  it  were  both  sin  and  folly  to  think  of  happi 
ness  at  such  a  moment,  His  companion  watched  his 


278  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

changing  countenance,  and  sought  with  generous  art  to 
wile  him  to  his  own  good. 

"  '  Perhaps  I  deceive  myself  in  regard  to  the  time  I  have 
to  live/  he  resumed.  'It  may  be  that  with  speedy  assist 
ance  I  might  recover  of  my  wound.  The  former  fugitives 
must  ere  this  have  carried  tidings  of  our  fatal  battle  to  the 
frontiers,  and  parties  will  be  out  to  succor  those  in  like 
condition  with  ourselves.  Should  you  meet  one  of  these 
and  guide  them  hither,  who  can  tell  but  that  I  may  sit  by 
my  own  fireside  again  ?' 

"  A  mournful  smile  strayed  across  the  features  of  the 
dying  man  as  he  insinuated  that  unfounded  hope — which, 
however,  was  not  without  its  effect  on  Eeuben.  No  merely 
selfish  motive,  nor  even  the  desolate  condition  of  Dorcas, 
could  have  induced  him  to  desert  his  companion  at  such  a 
moment.  But  his  wishes  seized  upon  the  thought  that 
Malvin's  life  might  be  preserved,  and  his  sanguine  nature 
heightened  almost  to  certainty  the  remote  possibility  of 
procuring  human  aid. 

"  '  Surely  there  is  reason — weighty  reason — to  hope  that 
friends  are  not  far  distant/  he  said,  half  aloud.  '  There 
fled  one  coward  unwounded  in  the  beginning  of  the  fight, 
and  most  probably  he  made  good  speed.  Every  true  man 
on  the  frontier  would  shoulder  his  musket  at  the  news,  and, 
though  no  party  may  range  so  far  into  the  woods  as  this,  I 
shall  perhaps  encounter  them  in  one  day's  march.  Coun 
sel  me  faithfully,'  he  added,  turning  to  Malvin  in  distrust 
of  his  own  motives.  '  Were  your  situation  mine,  would 
you  desert  me  while  life  remained  ?' 

"  '  It  is  now  twenty  years/  replied  Roger  Malvin,  sighing, 
however,  as  he  secretly  acknowledged  the  wide  dissimilarity 
between  the  two  cases — '  it  is  now  twenty  years  since  I 
escaped  with  one  dear  friend  from  Indian  captivity  near 
Montreal.  We  journeyed  many  days  through  the  woods, 
till  at  length,  overcome  with  hunger  and  weariness,  my 
friend  lay  down  and  besought  me  to  leave  him  ;  for  he 
knew  that  if  I  remained  we  both  must  perish.  And,  with 
but  little  hope  of  obtaining  succor,  I  heaped  a  pillow  of 
dry  leaves  beneath  his  head  and  hastened  on/ 

"'And  did  you  return  in  time  to  save  him  ?'  asked 
Reuben,  hanging  on  Malvin's  words  as  if  they  were  to  be 
prophetic  of  his  own  success. 

"''I  did/ answered  the  other,  '1  came  upon  the  camp 


ROGER  HAL  VIN  '£  B  URIAL.  279 

of  a  hunting-party  before  sunset  of  the  same  day  ;  I  guided 
them  to  the  spot  where  my  comrade  was  expecting  death, 
and  he  is  now  a  hale  and  hearty  man  upon  his  own  farm, 
far  within  the  frontiers,  while  I  lie  wounded  herein  the 
depths  of  the  wilderness/ 

"This  example,  powerful  in  effecting  Reuben's  decision, 
was  aided,  unconsciously  to  himself,  by  the  hidden  strength 
of  many  another  motive. 

"  Roger  Malvin  perceived  that  the  victory  was  nearly 
won. 

(i  'Now  go,  my  son,  and  Heaven  prosper  you!'  he  said. 
'  Turn  not  back  with  your  friends  when  you  meet  them, 
lest  your  wounds  and  weariness  overcome  you,  but  send 
hitherward  two  or  three  that  may  be  spared  to  search  for 
me.  And  believe  me.  Reuben,  my  heart  will  be  lighter 
with  every  step  you  take  toward  home/  Yet  there  was 
perhaps  a  change  both  in  his  countenance  and  voice  as  he 
spoke  thus;  for,  after  all,  it  was  a  ghastly  fate  to  be  left 
expiring  in  the  wilderness. 

"Reuben  Bourne,  but  half  convinced  that  he  was  acting 
rightly,  at  length  raised  himself  from  the  ground  and  pre 
pared  for  his  departure.  And  first,  though  contrary  to 
Malvin's  wishes,  he  collected  a  stock  of  roots  and  herbs, 
which  had  been  their  only  food  during  the  last  two  days. 
This  useless  supply  he  placed  within  reach  of  the  dying 
man,  for  whom,  also,  he  swept  together  a  fresh  bed  of  dry 
oak-leaves.  Then,  climbing  to  the  summit  of  the  rock, 
which  on  one  side  was  rough  and  broken,  he  bent  the  oak 
sapling  downward  and  bound  his  handkerchief  to  the  top 
most  branch.  This  precaution  was  not  unnecessary  to 
direct  any  who  might  come  in  search  of  Malvin,  for  every 
part  of  the  rock  except  its  broad,  smooth  front  was  con 
cealed  at  a  little  distance  by  the  dense  undergrowth  of  the 
forest.  The  handkerchief  had  been  the  bandage  of  a 
wound  upon  Reuben's  arm,  and  as  he  bound  it  to  the  tree 
he  vowed  by  the  blood  that  stained  it  that  he  would  return 
either  to  save  his  companion's  life  or  to  lay  his  body  in  the 
grave.  He  then  descended,  and  stood  Avith  downcast  eyes 
to  receive  Roger  Malvin's  parting  words. 

"  The  experience  of  the  latter  suggested  much  and  minute 
advice  respecting  the  youth's  journey  through  the  trackless 
forest.  Upon  this  subject  he  spoke"with  calm  earnestness, 
as  if  he  were  sending  Reuben  to  the  battle  or  the  chase, 


280  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

while  he  himself  remained  secure  at  home,  and  not  as  if 
the  human  countenance  that  was  about  to  leave  him  were 
the  last  he  would  ever  behold.  But  his  firmness  was  shaken 
before  he  concluded. 

"  '  Carry  my  blessing  to  Dorcas,  and  say  that  my  last 
prayer  shall  be  for  her  and  you.  Bid  her  to  have  no  hard 
thoughts  because  you  left  me  here/  Reuben's  heart  smote 
him,  '  for  that  your  life  would  not  have  weighed  with  you 
if  its  sacrifice  could  have  done  me  good.  She  will  marry 
you  after  she  has  mourned  a  little  while  for  her  father,  and 
Heaven  grant  you  long  and  happy  days,  and  may  your 
children's  children  stand  round  your  death-bed  !  And, 
Reuben/  added  he  as  the  weakness  of  mortality  made  its 
way  at  last,  '  return  when  your  wounds  are  healed  and 
your  weariness  refreshed — return  to  this  wild  rock  and  lay 
my  bones  in  the  grave  and  say  a  prayer  over  them/ 

"An  almost  superstitious  regard — arising,  perhaps,  from 
the  customs  of  the  Indians,  whose  war  was  with  the  dead, 
as  well  as  the  living — was  paid  by  the  frontier  inhabitants 
to  the  rites  of  sepulture;  and  there  are  many  instances  of 
the  sacrifice  of  life  in  the  attempt  to  bury  those  who  had 
fallen  by  the  'sword  of  the  wilderness/  Reuben,  there 
fore,  felt  the  full  inportance  of  the  promise  which  he  most 
solemnly  made  to  return  and  perform  Roger  Malvin's  obse 
quies.  It  was  remarkable  that  the  latter,  speaking  his 
whole  heart  in  his  parting  words,  no  longer  endeavored  to 
persuade  the  youth  that  even  the  speediest  succor  might 
avail  to  the  preservation  of  his  life.  Reuben  was  inter 
nally  convinced  that  he  should  see  Malvin's  living  face  no 
more.  His  generous  nature  would  fain  have  delayed  him, 
at  whatever  risk,  till  the  dying  scene  were  past,  but  the 
desire  of  existence  and  the  hope  of  happiness  had  strength 
ened  in  his  heart,  and  he  was  unable  to  resist  them. 

t( '  It  is  enough/  said  Roger  Malvin,  having  listened  to 
Reuben's  promise.  i  Go,  and  God  speed  you!' 

"  The  youth  pressed  his  hand  in  silence,  turned,  and  was 
departing.  His  slow  and  faltering  steps,  however,  had 
borne  him  but  a  little  way,  before  Malvin's  voice  recalled 
him. 

"'Reuben,  Reuben!'  said  he,  faintly;  and  Reuben  re 
turned  and  knelt  down  by  the  dying  man. 

"  '  Raise  me  and  let  me  lean  against  the  rock/  was  his 
last  request.  '  My  face  will  be  turned  toward  home,  and 


ROGER  HAL  VIN'S  B  URIAL.  281 

I  shall  see  you  a  moment  longer  as  you  pass  among  the 
trees/ 

"Reuben,  having  made  the  desired  alteration  in  his  com 
panion's  posture,  again  began  his  solitary  pilgrimage.  Ho 
walked  more  hastily  at  first  than  was  consistent  with  his 
strength;  for  a  sort  of  guilty  feeling  which  sometimes  tor 
ments  men  in  their  most  justifiable  acts  caused  him  to 
seek  concealment  from  Malviirs  eyes.  But  after  he  had 
trodden  far  upon  the  rustling  forest-leaves  he  crept  back, 
impelled  by  a  wild  and  painful  curiosity,  and,  sheltered  by 
the  earthy  roots  of  an  upturned  tree,  gazed  earnestly  at 
the  desolate  man.  The  morning  sun  was  unclouded,  and 
the  trees  and  shrubs  imbibed  the  sweet  air  of  the  month 
of  May;  yet  there  seemed  a  gloom  on  Nature's  face,  as  if 
she  sympathized  with  mortal  pain  and  sorrow.  Roger 
Malvin's  hands  were  uplifted  in  a  fervent  prayer,,  some  of 
the  words  of  which  stole  through  the  stillness  of  the 
woods  and  entered  Reuben's  heart,  torturing  it  with  an 
unutterable  pang.  They  were  the  broken  accents  of  a 
petition  for  his  own  happiness  and  that  of  Dorcas;  and,  as 
the  youth  listened,  conscience,  something  in  its  similitude, 
pleaded  strongly  witli  him  to  return  and  lie  down  again  by 
the  rock.  He  felt  how  hard  was  the  doom  of  the  kind 
and  generous  being  whom  he  had  deserted  in  his  extrem 
ity.  Death  would  come  like  the  slow  approach  of  a  corpse, 
stealing  gradually  toward  him  through  the  forest  and 
showing  its  ghastly  and  motionless  features  from  behind  a 
nearer,,  and  yet  a  nearer,  tree.  But  such  must  have  been 
Reuben's  own  fate  had  he  tarried  another  sunset;  and  who 
shall  impute  blame  to  him  if  he  shrink  from  so  useless  a 
sacrifice?  As  he  gave  a  parting  look  a  breeze  waved  the 
little  banner  upon  the  sapling  oak  and  reminded  Reuben 
of  his  vow. 

"  Many  circumstances  contributed  to  retard  the  wounded 
traveler  in  his  way  to  the  frontiers.  On  the  second  day 
the  clouds,  gathering  densely  over  the  sky,  precluded  the 
possibility  of  regulating  his  course  by  the  position  of  the 
sun,  and  he  knew  not  but  that  every  effort  of  his  almost 
exhausted  strength  was  removing  him  farther  from  the 
home  he  sought.  His  scanty  sustenance  was  supplied  by 
the  berries  and  other  spontaneous  products  of  the  forest. 
Herds  of  deer,  it  is  true,  sometimes  bounded  past  him, 


282  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

and  partridges  frequently  whirred  up  before  his  footsteps, 
but  his  ammunition  had  been  expended  in  the  fight,  and 
he  had  no  means  of  slaying  them.  His  wounds,  irritated 
by  the  constant  exertion  in  which  lay  the  only  hope  of 
life,  wore  away  his  strength,  and  at  intervals  confused  his 
reason.  But  even  in  the  wanderings  of  intellect  Reuben's 
young  heart  clung  strongly  to  existence,  and  it  was  only 
through  absolute  incapacity  of  motion  that  he  at  last  sunk 
down  beneath  a  tree,  compelled  there  to  await  death. 

"  In  this  situation  he  was  discovered  by  a  party  who, 
upon  the  first  intelligence  of  the  fight  had  been  dispatched 
to  the  relief  of  the  survivors.  They  conveyed  him  to  the 
nearest  settlement,  which  chanced  to  be  that  of  his  own 
residence. 

"  Dorcas,  in  the  simplicity  of  the  olden  time,  watched  by 
the  bedside  of  her  wounded  lover,  and  administered  all 
those  comforts  that  are  in  the  sole  gift  of  woman's  heart 
and  hand.  During  several  days  Reuben's  recollection 
strayed  drowsily  among  the  perils  and  hardships  through 
which  he  had  passed,  and  he  was  incapable  of  returning 
definite  answers  to  the  inquiries  with  which  many  were 
eager  to  harass  him.  No  authentic  particulars  of  the 
battle  had  yet  been  circulated,  nor  could  mothers,  wives 
and  children  tell  whether  their  loved  ones  were  detained  by 
captivity  or  by  the  stronger  chain  of  death. 

"  Dorcas  nourished  her  apprehensions  in  silence  till  one 
afternoon  when  Reuben  awoke  from  an  unquiet  sleep 
and  seemed  to  recognize  her  more  perfectly  than  at  any 
previous  time.  She  saw  that  his  intellect  had  become 
composed,  and  she  could  no  longer  restrain  her  filial 
anxiety. 

" '  My  father,  Reuben?'  she  began;  but  the  change  in 
her  lover's  countenance  made  her  pause. 

"  The  youth  shrunk  as  if  with  a  bitter  pain,  and  the 
blood  gushed  vividly  into  his  wan  and  hollow  cheeks. 
His  first  impulse  was  to  cover  his  face,  but,  apparently 
with  a  desperate  effort,  he  half  raised  himself  and  spoke 
vehemently,  defending  himself  against  an  imaginary  ac 
cusation. 

"  '  Your  father  was  sore  wounded  in  the  battle,  Dorcas, 
and  he  bade  me  not  to  burden  myself  with  him,  but  only 
to  lead  him  to  the  lake-side,  that  he  might  quench  his 
thirst  and  die.  But  I  would  not  desert  the  old  man  in  his 


HALVING  BURIAL.  283 

extremity,  and,  though  bleeding  myself,  I  supported  him; 
I  gave  him  half  my  strength  and  led  him  away  with  me. 
For  three  days  we  journeyed  together,  and  your  father 
was  sustained  beyond  my  hopes,  but,  awaking  at  sunrise 
on  the  fourth  day,  I  found  him  faint  and  exhausted.  He 
was  unable  to  proceed;  his  life  had  ebbed  away  fast, 
and— 

"'  He  died!'  exclaimed  Dorcas,  faintly. 

"  Reuben  felt  it  impossible  to  acknowledge  that  his  selfish 
love  of  life  had  hurried  him  away  before  her  father's  fate 
was  decided.  He  spoke  not,  lie  only  bowed  his  head,  and 
between  shame  and  exhaustion  sank  back  and  hid  his  face 
in  the  pillow.  Dorcas  wept,  when  her  fears  were  thus 
confirmed;  but  the  shock,  as  it  had  been  long  anticipated, 
was  on  that  account  the  less  violent. 

"  'You  dug  a  grave  for  my  poor  father  in  the  wilderness, 
Reuben?'  was  the  question^y  which  her  filial  piety  man 
ifested  itself. 

"  '  My  hands  were  weak,  but  I  did  what  I  could/  re 
plied  the  youth,  in  a  smothered  tone.  '  There  stands  a 
noble  tombstone  above  his  head,  and  1  would  to  heaven  1 
slept  as  soundly  as  he! ' 

"  Dorcas,  perceiving  the  wildness  of  his  latter  words,  in 
quired  no  further  at  that  time,  but  her  heart  found  ease  in 
the  thought  that  Roger  Malvin  had  not  lacked  such 
funeral  rites  as  it  was  possible  to  bestow.  The  tale^f 
Reuben's  courage  and  fidelity  lost  nothing  when  she  com 
municated  it  to  her  friends,  and  the  poor  youth,  tottering 
from  his  sick-chamber  to  breathe  the  sunny  air,  ex 
perienced  from  every  tongue  the  miserable  and  humiliat 
ing  torture  of  unmerited  praise.  All  acknowledged  that 
he  might  worthily  demand  the  hand  of  the  fair  maiden  to 
whose  father  he  had  been  ""  faithful  unto  death  ;  '  and, 
as  my  tale  is  not  of  love,  it  shall  suffice  to  say  that  in 
the  space  of  two  years  Reuben  became  the  husband  of 
Dorcas  Malvin.  During  the  marriage  ceremony  the  bride 
was  covered  with  blushes,  but  the  bridegroom's  face  was 
pale. 

"  There  was  now  in  the  breast  of  Reuben  Bourne  an  in 
communicable  thought — something  which  he  was  to  con 
ceal  most  needfully  from  her  whom  he  most  loved  and 
trusted.  He  regretted  deeply  and  bitterly  the  moral  cow 
ardice  that  had  restrained  his  words  when  he  was  about  to 


284  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

disclose  the  truth  to  Dorcas;  but  pride,  the  fear  of  losing 
her  affection,  the  dread  of  universal  scorn,  forbade  him  to 
rectify  this  falsehood.  He  felt  that  for  leaving  Roger 
Malvin  he  deserved  no  censure.  His  presence,  the  gratu 
itous  sacrifice  of  his  own  life,  would  have  added  only 
another — and  a  needless — agony  to  the  last  moments  of  the 
dying  man. /But  concealment  had  imparted  to  a  justifiable 
act  much  or  the  secret  effect  of  guilt,  and  Reuben,  while 
reason  told  him  that  he  had  done  right,  experienced  in  no 
small  degree  the  mental  horrors  which  punish  the  perpe 
trator  of  undiscovered  crime.  But  a  certain  association  of 
ideas,  he  at  times  almost  imagined  himself  a  murderer.  1 
For  years,  also,  a  thought  would  occasionally  recur  which, 
though  he  perceived  all  its  folly  and  extravagance,  he  had 
not  power  to  banish  from  his  mind;  it  was  a  haunting  and 
torturing  fancy  that  his  father-in-law  was  yet  sitting  at  the 
foot  of  the  rock,  .on  the  withered  forest-leaves,  alive,  and 
awaiting  his  pledged  assistance.  These  mental  deceptions, 
however,  came  and  went,  nor  did  he  ever  mistake  them  for 
realities;  but  in  the  calmest  and  clearest  moods  of  his  mind 
he  was  conscious  that  he  had  a  deep  vow  unredeemed,  and 
that  an  unburied  corpse  was  calling  to  him  out  of  the  wil 
derness,  j  Yet  such  was  the  consequence  of  his  prevarica 
tion  that  he  could  not  obey  the  call.  It  was  now  too  late 
to  require  the  assistance  of  Eoger  Malvin's  friends  in  per 
forming  his  long  deferred  sepulture,  and  superstitious  fears 
— of  which  none  were  more  susceptible  than  the  people  of 
the  outward  settlements — forbade  Reuben  to  go  alone. 
Neither  did  he  know  where  in  the  pathless  and  illimitable 
forest  to  seek  that  smooth  and  lettered  rock  at  the  base  of 
which  the  body  lay;  his  remembrance  of  every  portion  of 
his  travel  thence  "was  indistinct  and  the  latter  part  had 
left  no  impression  upon  his  mind.  \  There  was,  however,  a 
continual  impulse — a  voice  audible  only  to  himself — com 
manding  him  to  go  forth  and  redeem  his  vow,  and  he  had 
a  strange  impression  that,  were  he  to  make  the  trial,  he 
would  be  led  straight  to  Halving  bones.  But  year  after 
year  that  summons,  unheard  but  felt,  was  disobeyed.  His 
one  secret  thought  became  like  a  chain  binding  down  his 
spirit  and  like  a  serpent  gnawing  into  his  heart,  and  he  was 
transformed  into  a  sad  and  downcast  yet  irritable  man.  i 

"In  the  course  of  a  few  years  after  their  marriage  changes 
began  to  be  visible  in  the  external  prosperity  of  Reuben 


ROGER  MAL  VIN'S  B  URIAL.  285 

and  Dorcas.  The  only  riches  of  the  former  had  been  his 
stout  heart  and  strong  arm,  but  the  latter,  her  father's  sole 
heiress,  had  made  her  husband  master  of  a  farm,  under 
older  cultivation,  larger  and  better  stocked  than  most  of 
the  frontier  establishments.  Reuben  Bourne,  however, 
was  a  neglected  husbandman,  and,  while  the  lauds  of  the 
other  settlers  became  annually  more  fruitful,  his  deterior 
ated  in  the  same  proportion.  The  discouragements  to  agri 
culture  were  greatly  lessened  by  the  cessation  of  Indian 
war,  during  which  men  held  the  plow  in  one  hand  and 
the  musket  in  the  other,  and  were  fortunate  if  the  products 
of  their  dangerous  labor  were  not  destroyed  either  in  the 
field  or  in  the  barn  by  the  savage  enemy.  But  Reuben 
did  not  profit  by  the  altered  condition  of  the  country;  nor 
can  it  be  denied  that  his  intervals  of  industrious  attention 
to  his  affairs  were  but  scantily  rewarded  with  success.  The 
irritability  by  which  he  had  recently  become  distinguished 
was  another  cause  of  his  declining  prosperity,  as  it  occa 
sioned  frequent  quarrels  in  his  unavoidable  intercourse  with 
the  neighboring  settlers.  The  results  of  these  were  innum 
erable  lawsuits,  for  the  people  of  New  England,  in  the 
earliest  stages  and  wildest  circumstances  of  the  country, 
adopted,  whenever  attainable,  the  legal  mode  of  deciding 
their  differences.  To  be  brief,  the  world  did  not  go  well 
with  Reuben  Bourne,  and,  though  not  till  many  years  after 
his  marriage,  he  was  finally  a  ruined  man,  with  but  one  re 
maining  expedient  against  the  evil  fate  that  had  pursued 
him.  He  was  to  throw  sunlight  into  some  deep  recess  of 
the  forest  and  seek  subsistence  from  the  virgin  bosom  of  the 
wilderness. 

"  The  only  child  of  Reuben  and  Dorcas  was  a  son,  now 
arrived  afc  the  age  of  15  years,  beautiful  in  youth  and 
giving  promise  of  a  glorious  manhood,  lie  was  peculiarly 
qualified  for,  and  already  began  to  excel  in,  the  wild  ac 
complishments  of  frontier  life.  His  foot  was  fleet,  his  aim 
true,  his  apprehension  quick,  his  heart  glad  and  high,  and 
all  who  anticipated  the  return  of  Indian  war  spoke  of  Cyrus 
Bourne  as  a  future  leader  in  the  land.  The  boy  was  loved 
by  his  father  with  a  deep  and  silent  strength,  as  if 
whatever  was  good  and  happy  in  his  own  nature  had  been 
transferred  to  his  child,  carrying  his  affections  with  it. 
Even  Dorcas,  though  loving  and  beloved,  was  far  less  dear 
to  him,  for  Reuben's  secret  thoughts  and  insulated  emo- 


286  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

tions  had  gradually  made  him  a  selfish  man  and  he  could 
no  longer  love  deeply  except  where  he  saw  or  imagined 
some  recollection  or  likeness  of  his  own  mind.  In  Cyrus 
he  recognized  what  he  had  himself  been  in  other  days  and 
at  intervals  he  seemed  to  partake  of  the  boy's  spirit  and  to 
be  revived  with  a  fresh  and  happy  life.  Keuben  was  ac- 
acompanied  by  his  son  in  the  expedition  for  the  purpose  of 
selecting  a  tract  of  land  and  felling  and  burning  the  tim 
ber,  which  necessarily  preceded  the  removal  of  the  house 
hold  goods.  Two  months  of  autumn  were  thus  occupied  ; 
after  which,  Reuben  Bourneand  his  young  hunter  returned 
to  spend  their  last  winter  in  the  settlements. 

"  It  was  early  in  the  month  of  May  that  the  little  family 
snapped  asunder  whatever  tendrils  of  affections  had  clung 
to  inanimate  objects  and  bade  farewell  to  the  few  who  in 
the  blight  of  fortune  called  themselves  their  friends.  The 
sadness  of  the  parting  moment  had  to  each  of  the  pilgrims 
its  peculiar  alleviations.  Reuben — a  moody  man  and  mis 
anthropic  because  unhappy — strode  onward  with  his  usual 
stern  brow  and  downcast  eye,  feeling  few  regrets  and  dis 
daining  to  acknowledge  any.  Dorcas,  while  she  wept 
abundantly  over  the  broken  ties  by  which  her  simple  and 
affectionate  nature  had  bound  itself:  to  everything,  felt  that 
the  inhabitants  of  her  inmost  heart  moved  on  with  her  and 
that  all  else  would  be  supplied  wherever  she  might  go. 
And  the  boy  dashed  one  teardrop  from  his  eye  and  thought 
of  the  adventurous  pleasures  of  the  untrodden  forest.  Oh, 
who,  in  the  enthusiasm  of  a  day-dream,  has  not  wished 
that  he  were  a  wanderer  in  a  world  of  summer  wilderness 
with  one  fair  and  gentle  being  hanging  lightly  on  his  arm? 
In  youtli  his  free  and  exulting  step  won  Id  know  no  barrier  but 
the  rolling  ocean  or  the  snow-topped  mountains ;  calmer 
manhood  would  choose  a  home  where  Nature  had  strewn  a 
double  wealth  in  the  vale  of  some  transparent  stream;  and 
when  hoary  age,  after  long,  long  years  of  that  pure  life, 
stole  on  and  found  him  there,  it  would  find  him  the  father 
of  a  race,  the  patriarch  of  a  people,  the  founder  of  a 
mighty  nation  yet  to  be.  When  death,  like  the  sweet 
sleep  which  we  welcome  after  a  day  of  happiness,  came 
over  him,  his  far  descendants  would  mourn  over  the  ven 
erated  dust.  Enveloped  by  tradition  in  mysterious  attri 
butes,  the  men  of  future  generations  would  call  him  god- 


ROGER  MAL  VIN'S  B URIAL.  28? 

like  and  remote  posterity  would  see  him  standing,  dimly 
glorious,  far  up  the  valley  of  a  hundred  centuries. 

"  The  tangled  and  gloomy  forest  through  which  the  per 
sonages  of  my  tale  were  wandering  differed  widely  from 
the  dreamer's  Land  of  Fantasie;  yet  there  was  something 
in  their  way  of  life  that  Nature  asserted  as  her  own  and  the 
gnawing  cares  which  went  with  them  from  the  world  were 
all  that  now  obstructed  their  happiness.  One  stout  and 
shaggy  steed — the  bearer  of  all  their  wealth — did  not 
shrink  from  the  added  weight  of  Dorcas,  although  her 
hardy  breeding  sustained  her,  during  the  larger  part  of 
each  day's  journey,  by  her  husband's  side.  Reuben  and 
his  son,  their  muskets  on  their  shoulders  and  their  axes 
slung  behind  them,  kept  an  unwearied  pace,  each  watch 
ing  with  a  hunter's  eye  for  the  game  that  supplied  their 
food.  When  hunger  bade,  they  halted  and  prepared  their 
meal  on  the  bank  of  some  unpolluted  forest-brook  which, 
as  they  knelt  down  with  thirsty  lips  to  drink,  murmured  a 
sweet  willingness,  like  a  maiden  at  love's  first  kiss.  They 
slept  beneath  a  hut  of  branches  and  awoke  at  peep  of 
light  refreshed  for  the  toils  of  another  day.  Dorcas  and 
the  boy  went  on  joyously,  and  even  Reuben's  spirit  shone 
at  intervals  with  an  outward  gladness;  but  inwardly  there 
was  a  cold,  cold  sorrow  which  he  compared  to  the  snow 
drifts  lying  deep  in  the  glens  and  hollows  of  the  rivulets, 
while  the  leaves  were  of  brightly  green  above. 

"  Cyrus  Bourne  was  sufficiently  skilled  in  the  travel  of  the 
woods  to  observe  that  his  father  did  not  adhere  to  the 
course  they  had  pursued  in  their  expedition  of  the  preced 
ing  autumn.  They  were  now  keeping  farther  to  the  north, 
striking  out  more  directly  from  the  settlements  and  into  a 
region  of  which  savage  beasts  and  savage  men  were  as  yet 
the  sole  possessors.  The  boy  sometimes  hinted  his  opinions 
upon  the  subject,  and  Reuben  listened  attentively,  and 
once  or  twice  altered  the  direction  of  their  march  in  accord 
ance  with  his  son's  counsel.  But,  having  so  done,  he  seemed 
ill  at  ease.  His  quick  and  wandering  glances  were  sent 
forward,  apparently  in  search  of  enemies  lurking  behind 
the  tree-trunks,  and,  seeing  nothing  there,  he  would  cast 
his  eyes  backward,  as  if  in  fear  of  some  pursuer.  Cyrus, 
perceiving  that  his  father  gradually  resumed  the  old  direc 
tion,  forbore  to  interfere;  nor,  though  something  began  to 
weigh  upon  his  heart,  did  his  adventurous  nature  permit 


288  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

him  to  regret  the  increased  length  and  the  mystery  of  their 
way. 

fe  On  the  afternoon  of  the  fifth  day  they  halted  and  made 
their  simple  encampment  nearly  an  hour  before  sunset. 
The  face  of  the  country  for  the  last  few  miles  had  been 
diversified  by  swells  of  land  resembling  huge  waves  of  a 
petrified  sea,  and  in  one  of  the  corresponding  hollows — a 
wild  and  romantic  spot — had  the  family  reared  their  hut 
and  kindled  their  fire.  There  is  something  chilling,  and 
yet  heart-warming,  in  the  thought  of  three  united  by  strong 
bands  of  love  and  insulated  from  all  that  breathe  besides. 
The  dark  and  gloomy  pines  looked  down  upon  them,  and 
as  the  wind  swept  through  their  tops  a  pitying  sound  was 
heard  in  the  forest;  or  did  those  old  trees  groan  in  fear 
that  men  were  come  to  lay  the  ax.  to  their  roots  at  last? 
Reuben  and  his  son,  while  Dorcas  made  ready  their  meal, 
proposed  to  wander  out  in  search  of  game,  of  which  that 
day's  march  had  afforded  no  supply.  The  boy,  promising 
not  to  quit  the  vicinity  of  the  encampment,  bounded  off 
with  a  step  as  light  and  elastic  as  that  of  the  deer  he  hoped 
to  slay,  while  his  father,  feeling  a  transient  happiness  as  he 
gazed  after  him,  was  about  to  pursue  an  opposite  direction. 
Dorcas,  in  the  meanwhile,  had  seated  herself  near  their 
fire  of  fallen  branches,  upon  the  moss-grown  and  molder- 
ing  trunk  of  a  tree  uprooted  years  before.  Her  employ 
ment,  diversified  by  an  occasional  glance  at  the  pot  now 
beginning  to  simmer  over  the  blaze,  was  the  perusal  of  the 
current  year's  Massachusetts  Almanac,  which,  with  the 
exception  of  an  old  black-letter  bible,  comprised  all  the 
literary  wealth  of  the  family.  None  pay  a  greater  regard 
to  arbitrary  divisions  of  time  than  those  who  are  excluded 
from  society,  and  Dorcas  mentioned,  as  if  the  information 
were  of  importance,  that  it  was  now  the  12th  of  May. 
Her  husband  started. 

"  '  The  12th  of  May!  I  should  remember  it  well/  mut 
tered  he,  while  many  thoughts  occasioned  a  .momentary 
confusion  in  his  mind.  'Where  am  I?  Whither  am  I 
wandering?  Where  did  I  leave  him?' 

"  Dorcas,  too  well  accustomed  to  her  husband's  wayward 
moods  to  note  any  peculiarity  of  demeanor,  now  laid  aside 
the  almanac  and  addressed  him  in  that  mournful  tone 
which  the  tender-hearted  appropriate  to  griefs  long  cold 
and  dead. 


ROGER  MAL  VIN'8  B  URIAL.  289 

1 ' '  It  was  near  this  time  of  the  month,  eighteen  years  ago, 
that  my  poor  father  left  this  world  for  a  better.  He  had  a 
kind  arm  to  hold  his  head  and  a  kind  voice  to  cheer  him, 
Reuben,  in  his  last  moments,  and  the  thought  of  the  faith 
ful  care  you  took  of  him  has  comforted  me  many  a  time 
since.  Oh,  death  would  have  been  awful  to  a  solitary  man 
in  a  wild  place  like  this!' 

"  '  Pray  heaven,  Dorcas/  said  Reuben,  in  a  broken  voice 
— e  pray  heaven  that  neither  of  us  three  dies  solitary  and 
lies  unburied  in  this  howling  wilderness!'  and  he  hastened 
away,  leaving  her  to  watch  the  fire  beneath  the  gloomy  pines. 

"Reuben  Bourne's  rapid  pace  gradually  slackened  as  the 
pang  unintentionally  inflicted  by  the  words  of  Dorcas  be 
came  less  acute.  Many  strange  reflections,  however, 
thronged  upon  him,  and,  straying  onward  rather  like  a 
sleep-walker  than  a  hunter,  it  was  attributable  to  no  care 
of  his  own  that  his  devious  course  kept  him  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  encampment.  His  steps  were  inperceptibly  led  al 
most  in  a  circle,  nor  did  he  observe  that  lie  was  on  the 
verge  of  a  tract  of  land  heavily  timbered,  but  not  with 
pine  trees.  The  place  of  the  latter  was  here  supplied  by 
oaks  and  other  of  the  harder  woods,  and  around  their  roots 
clustered  a  dense  and  bushy  undergrowth,  leaving,  how 
ever,  barren  spaces  between  the  trees  thick-strewn  with 
withered  leaves.  Whenever  the  rustling  of  the  branches 
or  the  (freaking  of  the  trunks  made  a  sound  as  if  the  forest 
were  waking  from  slumber,  Reuben  instinctively  raised  the 
musket  that  rested  on  his  arm,  and  cast  a  quick,  sharp 
glance  on  every  side  ;  but,  convinced  by  a  partial  observa 
tion  that  no  animal  was  near,  he  would  again  give  himself 
up  to  his  thoughts.  {He  was  musing  on  the  strange  influ 
ence  that  had  led  him  away  from  his  premeditated  course 
and  so  far  into  the  depths  of  the  wilderness.  jUnable  to 
penetrate  to  the  secret  place  of  his  soul  where  his  motives 
lay  hidden,/ he  believed  that  a  supernatural  voice  had  called 
him  onward,  and  that  a  supernatural  power  had  obstructed 
his  retreat.  /  He  trusted  that  it  was  Heaven's  intent  to 
afford  him  an  opportunity  of  expiating  his  sin  ;  he  hoped 
that  he  might  find  the  bones  so  long  unburied,  and  that, 
having  laid  the  earth  over  them,  peace  would  throw  its 
sunlight  into  the  sepulcher  of  his  heart.  From  these 
thoughts  he  was  aroused  by  a  rustling  in  the  forest  at  some 
distance  from  the  spot  to  which  he  had  wandered.  Per- 


290  MOUSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

ceiving  the  motion  of  some  object  behind  a  thick  veil  of 
undergrowth,  he  fired  with  the  instinct  of  a  hunter  and 
the  aim  of  a  practised  marksman.  A  low  moan  which 
told  his  success,  and  by  which  even  animals  can  express 
their  dying  agony,  was  unheeded  by  Reuben  Bourne. 
AVhtit  were  the  recollections  now  breaking  upon  him  ? 

"The  thicket  into  which  Reuben  had  Bred  was  near  the 
summit  of  a  swell  of  land,  and  was  clustered  around  the 
base  of  a  rock  which  in  the  shape  and  smoothness  of  one  of 
it  surfaces  was  not  unlike  a  gigantic  gravestone.  As  if  re 
flected  in  a  mirror,  its  likeness  was  in  Reuben's  memory. 
He  even  recognized  the  veins  which  seemed  to  form  an  in 
scription  in  forgotten  characters  ;  everything  remained  the 
same  except  that  a  thick  covert  of  bushes  shrouded  the 
lower  part  of  the  rock,  and  would  have  hidden  Roger  Mal- 
vin  had  he  still  been  sitting  there.  Yet  in  the  next  moment 
Reuben's  eye  was  caught  by  another  change  that  time  had 
effected  since  he  last  stood  where  he  was  now  standing  again 
— behind  the  earthy  roots  of  the  up  torn  tree.  The  sapling 
to  which  he  had  bound  the  blood-stained  symbol  of  his  vow 
had  increased  and  strengthened  into  an  oak — far,  indeed, 
from  its  maturity,  but  with  no  mean  spread  of  shadowy 
branches.  There  was  one  singularity  observable  in  this 
tree  which  made  Reuben  tremble.  The  middle  and  lower 
branches  were  in  luxuriant  life  and  an  excess  of  vegetation 
had  fringed  the  trunk  almost  to  the  ground,  but  a  blight 
had  apparently  stricken  the  upper  part  of  the  oak,  and  the 
very  topmost  bough  was  withered,  sapless  and  utterly  dead. 
Reuben  remembered  how  the  little  banner  had  fluttered  on 
that  topmost  bough  when  it  was  green  and  lovely,  eighteen 
years  before.  Whose  guilt  had  blasted  it  ? 

"Dorcas,  after  the  departure  of  the  two  hunters,  continued 
her  preparations  for  their  evening  repast.  Her  sylvan  table 
was  the  moss-covered  trunk  of  a  large  fallen  tree,  on  the 
broadest  part  of  which  she  had  spread  a  snow-white  cloth 
and  arranged  what  were  left  of  the  bright  pewter  vessels 
that  had  been  her  pride  in  the  settlements.  It  had  a  strange 
aspect — that  one  little  spot  of  homely  comfort  in  the  deso 
late  heart  of  Nature.  The  sunshine  yet  lingered  upon  the 
higher  branches  of  the  trees  that  grew  on  rising  ground, 
but  the  shadows  of  evening  had  deepened  into  the  hollow 
where  the  encampment  was  made,  and  tile  firelight  began 


ROGER  MAL  VIN'S  B URIAL.  291 

to  redden  as  it  gleamed  up  the  tall  trunks  of  the  pines  or 
hovered  on  the  dense  and  obscure  mass  of  foliage  that  cir 
cled  round  the  spot.  The  heart  of  Dorcas  was  not  sad,  for 
she  felt  it  was  better  to  journey  in  the  wilderness  with  two 
whom  she  loved  than  to  be  a  lonely  woman  in  a  crowd  that 
cared  not  for  her.  As  she  busied  herself  in  arranging  seats 
of  moldering  wood  covered  with  leaves  for  Reuben  and 
her  son  her  voiced  danced  through  the  gloomy  forest  in  the 
measure  of  a  song  that  she  had  learned  in  youth.  The 
rude  melody — the  production  of  a  bard  who  won  no  name 
—was  descriptive  of  a  winter  evening  in  a  frontier  cottage, 
when,  secured  from  savage  inroad  by  the  high-piled  snow 
drifts,  the  family  rejoiced  by  their  own  fireside.  The  whole 
song  possessed  that  nameless  charm  peculiar  to  unborrowed 
thought,  but  four  con tinu ally-recurring  lines  shone  out 
from  the  rest  like  the  blaze  of  the  hearth  whose  joys  they 
celebrated.  Into  them,  working  magic  with  a  few  simple 
words,  the  poet  had  instilled  the  very  essence  of  domestic 
love  and  household  happiness,  and  they  were  poetry  and 
picture  joined  in  one.  As  Dorcas  sang  the  walls  of  her 
forsaken  home  seemed  to  encircle  her;  she  no  longer  saw 
the  gloomy  pines,  nor  heard  the  wind,  which  still,  as  she 
began  each  verse,  sent  a  heavy  breath  through  the  branches 
and  died  away  in  a  hollow  moan  from  the  burden  of  the 
song.  She  was  aroused  by  the  report  of  a  gun  in  the  vicin 
ity  of  the  encampment,  and  either  the  sudden  sound  or  her 
loneliness  by  the  glowing  fire  caused  her  to  tremble  violently. 
The  next  moment  she  laughed  in  the  pride  of  a  mother's 
heart. 

"  '  My  beautiful  young  hunter!  My  boy  has  slain  a  deer!' 
she  exclaimed,  recollecting  that  in  the  direction  whence 
the  shot  proceeded  Cyrus  had  gone  to  the  chase. 

"  She  waited  a  reasonable  time  to  hear  her  son's  light  step 
bounding  over  the  rustling  leaves  to  tell  of  his  success.  But 
he  did  not  immediately  appear,  and  she  sent  her  cheerful 
voice  among  the  trees  in  search  of  him: 

'"  Cyrus!     Cyrus!' 

(f  His  coming  was  still  delayed,  and  she  determined,  as  the 
report  of  the  gun  had  apparently  been  very  near,  to  seek 
for  him  in  person.  Her  assistance,  also,  might  be  necessary 
in  bringing  home  the  venison  which  she  flattered  herself  they 
had  obtained.  She  therefore  set  forward,  directing  her 
steps  by  the  long-past  sound,  and  singing  as  she  went  in 


292  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

order  that  the  boy  might  be  aware  of  her  approach  and  run 
to  meet  her.  From  behind  the  trunk  of  every  tree,  and 
from  every  hiding-place  in  the  thick  foliages  of  the  under 
growth,  she  hoped  to  discover  the  countenance  of  her  son 
laughing  with  the  sportive  mischief  that  is  born  of  affec 
tion.  The  sun  was  now  beneath  the  horizon,,  and  the  light 
that  came  down  among  the  trees  was  sufficiently  dim  to 
create  many  illusions  in  her  expecting  fancy.  Several  times 
she  seemed'indistinctly  to  see  his  face  gazing  out  from 
among  the  leaves,  and  once  she  imagined  that  he  stood 
beckoning  to  her  at  the  base  of  a  craggy  rock.  Keeping 
her  eyes  on  this  object,  however,  it  proved  to  be  no  more 
than  "the  trunk  of  an  oak  fringed  to  the  very  ground  with 
little  branches,  one  of  which,  thrust  out  farther  than  the 
rest,  was  shaken  by  the  breeze.  Making  her  way  round 
the  foot  of  the  rock,  she  suddenly  found  herself  close  to  her 
husband,  who  had  approached  in  another  direction.  Lean 
ing  upon  the  butt  of  his  gun,  the  muzzle  of  which  rested 
npon  the  withered  leaves,  he  was  apparently  absorbed  in 
the  contemplation  of  some  object  at  his  feet. 

"  '  How  is  this.  Reuben?  Have  you  slain  the  deer  and 
fallen  asleep  over  him?'  exclaimed  Dorcas,  laughing  cheer 
fully  on  her  first  slight  observation  of  his  posture  and  ap 
pearance. 

"He  stirred  not,  neither  did  he  turn  his  eyes  toward  her, 
and  a  cold,  shuddering  fear  indefinite  in  its  source  and  ob 
ject  began  to  creep  into  her  blood.  She  now  perceived 
that  her  husband's  face  was  ghastly  pale  and  his  feature's 
were  rigid,  as  if  incapable  of  assuming  any  other  expres 
sion  than  the  strong  despair  which  had  hardened  upon 
them.  He  gave  not  the  slightest  evidence  that  he  was 
aware  of  her  approach. 

"  'For  the  love  of  heaven,  Reuben,  speak  to  me!'  cried 
Dorcas,  and  the  strange  sound  of  her  own  voice  affrighted 
her  even  more  than  the  dead  silence. 

"Her  husband  started,  stared  into  her  face,  drew  her  to 
the  front  of  the  rock  and  pointed  with  his  finger. 

"  Oh,  there  lay  the  boy,  asleep,  but  dreamless,  upon  the 
fallen  forest  leaves.  His  cheek  rested  upon  his  arm,  his 
curled  locks  were  thrown  back  from  his  brow,  his  limbs 
were  slightly  relaxed.  Had  a  sudden  weariness  overcome 
the  youthful  hunter?  Would  his  mother's  voice  arouse 
him?  She  knew  that  it  was  death. 


ROGER  HALVING  BURIAL.  293 

"  '  This  broad  rock  is  the  grave-stone  of  your  near  kin 
dred,  Dorcas/  said  her  husband.  '  Your  tears  will  fall 
at  once  over  your  father  and  son/ 

"  She  heard  him  not.  "With  one  wild  shriek,  that  seemed 
to  force  its  way  from  the  sufferer's  inmost  soul,  she  sank 
insensible  by  the  side  of  her  dead  boy.  At  that  moment 
the  withered  topmost  bough  of  the  oak  loosened  itself  in 
the  stilly  air  and  fell  in  soft,  light  fragments  upon  the 
rock,  upon  the  leaves,  upon  Reuben,  upon  his  wife  and 
child  and  upon  Roger  Malvin's  bones.  Then  Reuben's 
heart  was  stricken,  and  the  tears  gushed  out  like  water 
from  a  rock.  The  vow  that  the  wounded  youth  ho,d  made 
the  blighted  man  had  come  to  redeem.  His  sin  was  expi 
ated,  the  curse  was  gone  from  him;  and,  in  the  hour  when 
he  had  shed  blood  dearer  to  him  than  his  own,  a  prayer — 
the  first  for  years — went  up  to  heaven  from  the  lips  of 
Reuben  Bourne." 


294  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 


P.'S.  CORRESPONDENCE. 


MY  UNFORTUNATE  friend  P.  has  lost  the  thread  of  his 
life  by  the  interposition  of  long  intervals  of  partially- 
disordered  reason.  The  past  and  present  are  jumbled 
together  in  his  mind  in  a  manner  often  productive  of 
curious  results,  and  which  will  be  better  understood  after 
the  perusal  of  the  following  letter  than  from  any  description 
that  I  could  give.  The  poor  fellow,  without  once  stirring 
from  the  little  white-washed,  iron-grated  room  to  which  he 
alludes  in  his  first  paragraph,  is  nevertheless  a  great  trav 
eler,  and  meets  in  his  wanderings  a  variety  of  personages 
who  have  long  ceased  to  be  visible  to  any  eye  save  his  own. 
In  my  opinion,  all  this  is  not  so  much  a  delusion  as  a 
partly  wilful  and  partly  involuntary  sport  of  the  imagina 
tion,  to  which  his  disease  has  imparted  such  morbid  energy 
that  he  beholds  these  spectral  scenes  and  characters  with 
no  less  distinctness  than  a  play  upon  the  stage,  and  with 
somewhat  more  of  illusive  credence.  Many  of  his  letters 
are  in  my  possession,  some  based  upon  the  same  vagary  as 
the  present  one  and  others  upon  hypotheses  not  a  whit 
short  of  it  in  absurdity.  The  whole  form  a  series  of  cor 
respondence  which,  should  fate  seasonably  remove  my 
poor  friend  from  what  is  to  him  a  world  of  moonshine,  I 
promise  myself  a  pious  pleasure  in  editing  for  the  public 
eye.  P.  had  always  a  hankering  after  literary  reputation, 
and  has  made  more  than  one  unsuccessful  effort  to  achieve 
it.  It  would  not  be  a  little  odd  if,  after  missing  his  object 
while  seeking  it  by  the  light  of  reason,  he  should  prove  to 
have  stumbled  upon  it  in  his  misty  excursions  beyond  the 
limits  of  sanity, 

"  LONDON,  February  25,  1845. 
"  MY   DEAR  FRIEND. — Old  associations    cling  to   the 


P.'S.  CORRESPONDENCE  295 

mind  with  astonishing  tenacity.  Daily  custom  grows  up 
about  us  like  a  stone  wall  and  consolidates  itself  into 
almost  as  material  an  entity  as  mankind's  strongest  archi 
tecture.  It  is  sometimes  a  serious  question  with  me 
whether  ideas  be  not  really  visible  and  tangible,  and  en 
dowed  with  all  the  other  qualities  of  matter.  Sitting,  as 
I  do  at  this  moment,  in  my  hired  apartment,  writing  be 
side  the  hearth  over  which  hangs  a  print  of  Queen  Victoria, 
listening  to  the  muffled  roar  of  the  world's  metropolis,  and 
with  a  window  at  but  five  paces  distant,  through  which, 
whenever  I  please,  I  can  gaze  out  on  actual  London — 
with  all  this  positive  certainty  as  to  my  whereabouts,  what 
kind  of  notion,  do  you  think,  is  just  now  perplexing  my 
brain?  Why — would  you  believe  it? — that  all  this  time  I 
am  still  an  inhabitant  of  that  wearisome  little  chamber — 
that  whitewashed  little  chamber,  that  little  chamber  with 
its  one  small  window,  across  which,  from  some  inscrutable 
reason  of  taste  or  convenience,  my  landlord  had  placed 
a  row  of  iron  bars — that  same  little  chamber,  in  short, 
whither  your  kindness  has  so  often  brought  you  to  visit 
me.  Will  no  length  of  time  or  breadth  of  space  enfranchise 
me  from  that  unlovely  abode?  I  travel,  but  it  seems  to  be 
like  the  snail — with  my  house  upon  my  head.  Ah,  well! 
I  am  verging,  I  suppose,  on  that  period  of  life  when  pres 
ent  scenes  and  events  make  but  feeble  impressions  in  com 
parison  with  those  of  yore;  so  that  I  must  reconcile  myself 
to  be  more  and  more  the  prisoner  of  memory,  who  merely 
lets  me  hop  about  a  little  with  her  chain  around  my  leg. 

"My  letters  of  introduction  have  been  of  the  utmost 
service,  enabling  me  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  several 
distinguished  characters  who  until  now  have  seemed  as  re 
mote  from  the  sphere  of  my  personal  intercourse  as  the  wits 
of  Queen  Anne's  time  or  Ben  Jonson's  compotators  at  the 
Mermaid.  One  of  the  first  of  which  I  availed  myself  was 
the  letter  to  Lord  Byron.  I  found  His  Lordship  looking 
much  older  than  I  had  anticipated,  although  considering 
his  former  irregularities  of  life  and  the  various  wear  and 
tear  of  his  constitution,  not  older  than  a  man  on  the  verge 
of  60  reasonably  may  look.  But  I  had  invested  his  earthly 
frame,  in  my  imagination,  with  the  poet's  spiritual  immor 
tality.  He  wears  a  brown  wig  very  luxuriantly  curled  and 
extending  down  over  his  forehead.  The  expression  of  his 
eyes  is  concealed  by  spectacles.  His  early  tendency  to 


296  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

obesity  having  increased,  Lord  Byron  is  now  enormously 
fat — so  fat  as  to  give  the  impression  of  a  person  quite  over 
laden  with  his  own  flesh  and  without  sufficient  vigor  to 
diffuse  his  personal  life  through  the  great  mass  of  corporeal 
substance  which  weighs  upon  him  so  cruelly.  You  gaze  at 
the  mortal  heap,  and  while  it  fills  your  eye  with  what  pur 
ports  to  be  Byron,  you  murmur  within  yourself,  '  For 
Heaven's  sake,  where  is  he?"  Were  I  disposed  to  be  caustic, 
I  might  consider  this  mass  of  earthly  matter  as  the  symbol, 
in  a  material  shape,  of  those  evil  habits  and  carnal  vices 
which  unspiritualize  man's  nature  and  clog  up  his  avenues 
of  communication  with  the  better  life.  But  this  would  be 
too  harsh:  and,  besides,  Lord  Byron's  morals  have  been 
improving,  while  his  outward  man  has  swollen  to  such  un 
conscionable  circumference.  Would  that  he  were  leaner! 
for,  though  he  did  me  the  honor  to  present  his  hand,  yet 
it  was  so  puffed  out  with  alien  substance  that  I  could  not 
feel  as  if  I  had  touched  the  hand  that  wrote  '  Childe 
Harold/ 

"  On  my  entrance  his  lordship  had  apologized  for  not 
rising  to  receive  me,  on  the  sufficient  plea  that  the  gout  for 
several  years  past  had  taken  up  its  constant  residence  in 
his  right  foot,  which,  accordingly,  was  swathed  in  many 
rolls  of  flannel  and  deposited  upon  a  cushion.  The  other 
foot  was  hidden  in  the  drapery  of  his  chair.  Do  you 
recollect  whether  Byron's  right  or  left  foot  was  the  de 
formed  one? 

"The  noble  poet's  reconciliation  with  Lady  Byron  is 
now,  as  you  are  aware,  of  ten  years'  standing,  nor  does  it 
exhibit,  I  am  assured,  any  symptom  of  breach  or  fracture. 
They  are  said  to  be,  if  not  a  happy,  at  least  a  contented — 
or,  at  all  events,  a  quiet — couple,  descending  the  slope  of 
life  with  that  tolerable  degree  of  mutual  support  which 
will  enable  them  to  come  easily  and  comfortably  to  the 
bottom.  It  is  pleasant  to  reflect  how  entirely  the  poet  has 
redeemed  his  youthful  errors  in  this  particular.  Her  lady 
ship's  influence,  it  rejoices  me  to  add,  has  been  productive 
of  the  happiest  results  upon  Lord  Byron  in  a  religious 
point  of  view.  He  now  combines  the  most  rigid  tenets  of 
Methodism  with  the  ultra  doctrines  of  the  Puseyites,  the 
former  being,  perhaps,  due  to  the  convictions  wrought  upon 
his  mind  by  his  noble  consort,  while  the  latter  are  the  em 
broidery  and  picturesque  illumination  demanded  by  his 


P.'S.  CORRESPONDENCE.  297 

imaginative  character.  Much  of  whatever  expenditure 
his  increasing  habits  of  thrift  continue  to  allow  him  is  be 
stowed  ill  the  reparation  or  beautifying  of  places  of  wor 
ship;  and  this  nobleman,  whose  name  was  once  considered 
a  synonym  of  the  foul  fiend,  is  now  all  but  canonized  as  a 
saint  in  many  pulpits  of  the  metropolis  and  elsewhere.  In 
politics  Lord  Byron  is  an  uncompromising  conservative, 
and  loses  no  opportunity,  whether  in  the  House  of  Lords 
or  in  private  circles.,  of  denouncing  and  repudiating  the 
mischievous  and  anarchical  notions  of  his  earlier  day.  Nor 
does  he  fail  to  visit  similar  sins  in  other  people  with  the 
sincerest  vengeance  which  his  somewhat  blunted  pen  is  cap 
able  of  inflicting.  Sou  they  and  he  are  on  the  most  inti 
mate  terms.  You  are  aware  that,  some  little  time  before 
the  death  of  Moore,  Byron  caused  that  brilliant  but  repre 
hensible  man  to  be  ejected  from  his  house.  Moore  took 
the  insult  so  much  to  heart  that  it  is  said  to  have  been  one 
great  cause  of  the  lit  of  illness  which  brought  him  to  the 
grave.  Others  pretend  that  the  lyrist  died  in  a  very  happy 
state  of  mind,  singing  one  of  his  own  sacred  melodies  and 
expressing  his  belief  that  it  would  be  heard  within  the 
gate  of  paradise  and  gain  him  instant  and  honorable 
admittance.  I  wish  he  may  have  found  it  so. 

"  I  failed  not,  as  you  may  suppose,  in  the  course  of  con 
versation  with  Lord  Byron,  to  pay  the  meed  of  homage  due 
to  a  mighty  poet  by  allusions  to  passages  in  '(Jhilde  Harold' 
and  *  Manfred'  and  'Don  Juan'  which  have  made  so 
large  a  portion  of  the  music  of  my  life.  My  words,  whether 
apt  or  otherwise,  were  at  least  warm  with  the  enthusiasm 
of  one  worthy  to  discourse  of  immortal  poesy.  It  was  evi 
dent,  however,  that  they  did  not  go  precisely  to  the  right 
spot.  I  could  perceive  that  there  was  some  mistake  or 
other,  and  was  not  a  little  angry  with  myself  and  ashamed 
of  my  abortive  attempt  to  throw  back  from  my  own  heart 
to  the  gifted  author's  ear  the  echo  of  those  strains  that  have 
resounded  throughout  the  world.  But  by  and  by  the  secret 
peeped  quietly  out.  Byron — I  have  the  information  from 
his  own  lips,  so  that  you  need  not  hesitate  to  repeat  it  in 
literary  circles — Byron  is  preparing  a  new  edition  of  his 
complete  works,  carefully  corrected,  expurgated  and 
amended  in  accordance  with  his  present  creed  of  taste, 
morals,  politics  and  religion.  It  so  happened  that  the  very 
passages  of  highest  inspiration  to  which  I  had  alluded 


298  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

were  among  the  condemned  and  rejected  rubbish  which  it 
is  his  purpose  to  cast  into  the  gulf  of  oblivion.  To  whisper 
you  the  truth,  it  appears  to  me  that,  his  passions  having 
burned  out,  the  extinction  of  their  vivid  and  riotous  flame 
has  deprived  Lord  Byron  of  the  illumination  by  which  he 
not  merely  wrote,  but  was  enabled  to  feel  and  comprehend 
what  he  had  written.  Positively,  he  no  longer  under 
stands  his  own  poetry. 

"  This  became  very  apparent  on  his  favoring  me  so  far  as 
to  read  a  few  specimens  of  '  Don  Juan '  in  the  moralized 
version.  Whatever  is  licentious,  whatever  is  disrespectful 
to  the  sacred  mysteries  of  our  faith,  whatever  morbidly  mel 
ancholic  or  splenetically  sportive,  whatever  assails  settled 
constitutions  of  government  orsystems  of  society,  whatever 
could  wound  the  sensibility  of  any  mortal  except  a  pagan, 
a  republican  or  a  dissenter,  has  been  unrelentingly  blotted 
out  and  its  place  supplied  by  unexceptional  verses  in  his 
lordship's  later  style.  You  may  judge  how  much  of  the 
poem  remains  as  hitherto  published.  The  result  is  not  so 
good  as  might  be  wished;  in  plain  terms,  it  is  a  very  sad 
affair  indeed,  for,  though  the  torches  kindled  in  Tophet 
have  been  extinguished,  they  leave  an  abominably  ill  odor 
and  are  succeeded  by  no  glimpses  of  hallowed  fire.  It  is  to 
be  hoped,  nevertheless,  that  this  attempt  on  Lord  Byron's 
part  to  atone  for  his  youthful  errors  will  at  length  induce 
the  dean  of  Westminster,  or  whatever  churchman  is  con 
cerned,  to  allow  Thorwaldsen's  statue  of  the  poet  its  due 
niche  in  the  grand  old  abbey.  His  bones,  you  know,  when 
brought  from  Greece,  were  denied  sepulture  among  those  of 
his  tuneful  brethren  there. 

"  What  a  vile  slip  of  the  pen  was  that!  How  absurd  in 
me  to  talk  about  burying  the  bones  of  Byron,  whom  I  have 
just  seen  alive  and  incased  in  a  big  round  bulk  of  flesh! 
But,  to  say  the  truth,  a  prodigiously  fat  man  always  im 
presses  me  as  a  kind  of  hobgoblin;  in  the  very  extravagance 
of  his  mortal  system  I  find  something  akin  to  the  immateri 
ality  of  a  ghost.  And  then  that  ridiculous  old  story  darted 
into  my  mind  how  that  Byron  died  of  fever  at  Missolonghi 
about  twenty  years  ago.  More  and  more  I  recognize  that 
we  dwell  in  a  world  of  shadows,  and,  for  my  part,  I  hold  it 
hardly  worth  the  trouble  to  attempt  a  distinction  between 
shadows  in  the  mind  and  shadows  out  of  it.  If  there  be 
any  difference,  the  former  are  rather  the  more  substantial. 


P.'S.  CORRESPONDENCE.  299 

"  Only  think  of  my  good  fortune !  The  venerable 
Robert  Burns — now,  if  I  mistake  not,  in  his  87th  year — 
happens  to  be  making  a  visit  to  London,  as  if  on  purpose 
to  afford  me  an  opportunity  of  grasping  him  by  the  hand. 
For  upward  of  twenty  years  past  he  has  hardly  left  his 
quiet  cottage  in  Ayrshire  for  a  single  night  and  has  only 
been  drawn  hither  now  by  the  irresistible  persuasions  of 
all  the  distinguished  men  in  England.  They  wish  to  cele 
brate  the  patriarch's  birthday  by  a  festival.  It  will  be  the 
greatest  literary  triumph  on  record.  Pray  Heaven  the 
little  spirit  of  life  within  the  aged  bard's  bosom  may  not  be 
extinguished  in  the  luster  of  that  hour!  I  have  already 
had  the  honor  of  an  introduction  to  him  at  the  British 
Museum,  where  he  was  examining  a  collection  of  his  own 
unpublished  letters  interspersed  with  songs  which  have 
escaped  the  notice  of  all  his  biographers. 

"Poll!  Nonsense!  What  am  I  thinking  of?  How 
should  Burns  have  been  embalmed  in  biography  when  he  is 
still  a  hearty  old  man? 

"  The  figure  of  the  bard  is  tall  and  in  the  highest  degree 
reverend,  nor  the  less  so  that  it  is  much  bent  by  the  bur 
den  of  time.  His  white  hair  floats  like  a  snowdrift  around 
his  face,  in  which  are  seen  the  furrows  of  intellect  and  pas 
sion,  like  the  channels  of  headlong  torrents  that  have  foamed 
themselves  away.  The  old  gentleman  is  in  excellent  pre 
servation,  considering  his  time  of  life.  He  has  that 
crickety  sort  of  liveliness — I  mean  the  cricket's  humor  of 
chirping  for  any  cause  or  none — which  is  perhaps  the  most 
favorable  mood  that  can  befall  extreme  old  age.  Our  pride 
forbids  us  to  desire  it  for  ourselves,  although  we  perceive  it 
to  be  a  beneficence  of  nature  in  the  case  of  others.  I  was 
surprised  to  find  it  in  Burns.  It  seems  as  if  his  ardent 
heart  and  brilliant  imagination  had  both  burned  down  to  the 
last  embers,  leaving  only  a  little  flickering  flame  in  one  cor 
ner,  which  keeps  dancing  upward  and  laughing  all  by 
itself.  He  is  110  longer  capable  of  pathos.  At  the  request 
of  Allan  Cunningham  he  attempted  to  sing  his  own  song 
4  To  Mary  in  Heaven/  but  it  was  evident  that  the  feeling 
of  those  verses,  so  profoundly  true  and  so  simply  expressed, 
was  entirely  beyond  the  scope  of  his  present  sensibilities; 
and  when  a  touch  of  it  did  partially  awaken  him,  the  tears 
immediately  gushed  into  his  eyes  and  his  voice  broke  into 
a  tremulous  cackle.  And  yet  he  but  indistinctly  knew 


300  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

wherefore  he  was  weeping.  Ah!  he  must  not  think  again 
of  Mary  in  heaven  until  he  shake  off  the  dull  impediment 
of  time  and  ascend  to  meet  her  there. 

"Burns  then  began  to  repeat  '  Tom  O'Shanter/but  was 
so  tickled  with  its  wit  and  humor — of  which,  however,  I 
did  suspect  he  had  but  a  traditionary  sense — that  he  soon 
burst  into  a  fit  of  chirruping  laughter,  succeeded  by  a  cough 
which  brought  this  not  very  agreeable  exhibition  to  a  close. 
On  the  whole,  I  would  rather  not  have  witnessed  it.  It  is 
a  satisfactory  idea,  however,  that  the  last  forty  years  of  the 
peasant-poet's  life  have  been  passed  in  competence  and  per 
fect  comfort.  Having  been  cured  of  his  bardic  improvi 
dence  for  many  a  day  past  and  grown  as  attentive  to  the 
main  chance  as  a  canny  Scotsman  should  be,  he  is  now  con 
sidered  to  be  quite  well  off  as  to  pecuniary  circumstances. 
This,  I  suppose,  is  worth  having  lived  so  long  for. 

"  I  took  occasion  to  inquire  of  some  of  the  countrymen  of 
Burns  in  regard  to  the  health  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  His 
condition  I  am  sorry  to  say,  remains  the  same  as  for  ten 
years  past;  it  is  that  of  a  hopeless  paralytic  palsied  not 
more  in  body  than  in  those  nobler  attributes  of  which  the 
body  is  the  instrument.  And  thus  he  vegetates  from  day 
to  day  and  from  year  to  year  at  that  splendid  fantasy  of 
Abbotsford  which  grew  out  of  his  brain,  and  became  a 
symbol  of  the  great  romancer's  tastes,  feelings,  studies,  prej 
udices  and  modes  of  intellect.  Whether  in  verse,  prose  or 
architecture,  he  could  achieve  but  one  thing,  although  that 
one  in  infinite  variety.  There  he  reclines  on  a  couch  in  his 
library,  and  is  said  to  spend  whole  hours  of  every  day  in 
dictating  tales  to  an  amanuensis.  To  an  imaginary  amanu 
ensis,  for  it  is  not  deemed  worth  any  one's  trouble  now  to 
take  down  what  flows  from  that  once  brilliant  fancy,  every 
image  of  which  was  formerly  worth  gold  and  capable  of 
being  coined.  Yet  Cunningham,  who  has  lately  seen  him, 
assures  me  that  there  is  now  and  then  a  touch  of  the  genius, 
a  striking  combination  of  incident  or  a  picturesque  trait  of 
character,  such  as  no  other  man  alive  could  have  hit  off,  a 
glimmer  from  that  ruined  mind,  as  if  the  sun  had  suddenly 
flashed  on  a  half-rusted  helmet  in  the  gloom  of  an  ancient 
hall.  But  the  plots  of  these  romances  became  inextricably 
confused;  the  characters  melt  into  one  another,  and  the 
tale  loses  itself  like  the  course  of  a  stream  flowing  though 
muddy  and  marshy  ground. 


P.'S.  CORRESPONDENCE.  301 

"  For  my  part,  I  can  hardly  regret  that  Sir  Walter  Scott 
had  lost  his  consciousness  of  outward  things  before  his  works 
went  out  of  vogue.  It  was  good  that  he  should  forget  his 
fame  rather  than  that  Fame  should  first  have  forgotten 
him.  Were  he  still  a  writer  and  as  brilliant  a  one  as  ever, 
he  could  no  longer  maintain  anything  like  the  same  posi 
tion  in  literature.  The  world  nowadays  requires  a  more 
earnest  purpose,  a  deeper  moral  and  a  closer  and  homelier 
truth  than  he  was  qualified  to  supply  it  with.  Yet  who 
can  be  to  the  present  generation  even  what  Scott  has  been 
to  the  past?  Bulwer  nauseates  me;  he  is  the  very  pimple 
of  the  age's  humbug.  There  is  no  hope  of  the  public  so 
long  as  he  retains  an  admirer,  a  reader  or  a  publisher.  I 
had  expectations  from  a  young  man — one  Dickens — who 
published  a  few  magazine  articles  very  rich  in  humor  and 
not  without  symptoms  of  genuine  pathos,  but  the  poor  fel 
low  died  shortly  after  commencing  an  odd  series  of  sketches 
entitled,  I  think,  the  '  Pickwick  Papers.'  Kbt  impossibly 
the  world  has  lost  more  than  it  dreams  of  by  the  untimely 
death  of  this  Mr.  Dickens. 

"  Whom  do  you  think  I  met  in  Pall  Mall  the  other  day? 
You  would  not  hit  it  in  ten  guesses.  Why,  no  less  a  man 
than  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  or  all  that  is  now  left  to  him — 
that  is  to  say,  the  skin,  bones  and  corporeal  substance,  little 
cocked  hat,  green  coat,  white  breeches  and  small  sword, 
which  are  still  known  by  his  redoubtable  name.  lie  was 
attended  only  by  two  policemen,  who  walked  quietly  be 
hind  the  phantasm  of  the  old  ex-emperor,  appearing  to 
have  no  duty  in  regard  to  him  except  to  see  that  none  of 
the  light-fingered  gentry  should  possess  themselves  of  the 
star  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  Nobody  save  myself  so  much 
as  turned  to  look  after  him;  nor,  it  grieves  me  to  confess, 
could  even  I  contrive  to  muster  up  any  tolerable  interest, 
even  by  all  that  the  warlike  spirit  formerly  manifested 
within  that  now  decrepit  shape  had  wrought  upon  our 
globe.  There  is  no  surer  method  of  annihilating  the  magic 
influence  of  a  great  renown  than  by  exhibiting  the  pos 
sessor  of  it  in  the  decline,  the  overthrow,  the  utter  degra 
dation,  of  his  powers,  buried  beneath  his  own  mortality, 
and  lacking  even  the  qualities  of  sense  that  enable  the  most 
ordinary  men  to  bear  themselves  decently  in  the  eye  of  the 
world.  This  is  the  state  of  which  disease,  aggravated  by 
long  endurance  of  a  tropical  climate  and  assisted  by  old 


302  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MAN  SB. 

age — for  ne  is  now  above  70 — has  reduced  Bonaparte.  The 
British  government  has  acted  shrewdly  in  retransporting 
him  from  St.  Helena  to  England.  They  should  now  re 
store  him  to  Paris,  and  there  let  him  once  again  review 
the  relics  of  his  armies.  His  eye  is  dull  and  rheumy;  his 
nether  lip  hung  down  upon  his  chin.  While  I  was  observ 
ing  him  there  chanced  to  be  a  little  extra  bustle  in  the 
street,  and  he,  the  brother  of  Cassar  and  Hannibal — the 
great  captain  who  had  veiled  the  world  in  battle-smoke  and 
tracked  it  round  with  bloody  footsteps — was  seized  with  a 
nervous  trembling,,  and  claimed  the  protection  of  the  two 
policeman  by  a  cracked  and  dolorous  cry.  The  fellows 
winked  at  one  another,  laughed  aside,  and,  patting  Napo 
leon  on  the  back,  took  each  an  arm  and  led  him  away. 

"Death  and  fury!  Ha,  villain!  how  came  you  hither  ? 
Avaunt,  or  I  fling  rny  inkstand  at  your  head.  Tush,  tush! 
It  is  all  a  mistake.  Pray,  my  dear  friend,  pardon  this 
little  outbreak.  The  fact  is  the  mention  of  those  two 
policemen  and  their  custody  of  Bonaparte  had  called  up 
the  idea  of  that  odious  wretch — you  remember  him  well — 
who  was  pleased  to  take  such  gratuitous  and  impertinent 
care  of  my  person  before  I  quitted  New  England.  Forth 
with  uprose  before  my  mind/s  eye  that  same  little  white 
washed  room  with  the  iron-grated  window — strange  that  it 
should  have  been  iron-grated — where,  in  too  easy  compli 
ance  with  the  absurd  wishes  of  myv  relatives,  I  have  wasted 
several  good  years  of  my  life.  Positively,  it  seemed  to  me 
that  I  was  still  sitting  there,  and  that  the  keeper — not  that 
he  ever  was  my  keeper,  neither,  but  only  a  kind  of  intru 
sive  devil  of  a  body-servant — had  just  peeped  in  at  the 
door.  The  rascal!  I  owe  him  an  old  grudge,  and  will  find 
a  time  to  pay  it  yet.  Fie,  tie!  The  mere  thought  of  him 
has  exceedingly  discomposed  me.  Even  now  that  hateful 
chamber — that  iron-grated  window  which  blasted  the 
blessed  sunshine  as  it  fell  through  the  dusty  panes  and 
made  it  poison  to  my  soul — looks  more  distinct  to  my  view 
than  does  this  my  comfortable  apartment  in  the  heart  of 
London.  The  reality — that  which  I  know  to  be  such — 
hangs  like  remnants  of  tattered  scenery  over  the  intoler 
ably  prominent  illusion.  Let  us  think  of  it  no  more. 

"  You  will  be  anxious  to  hear  of  Shelly.  I  need  not  say 
what  is  known  to  all  the  world — that  this  celebrated  poet 
has  for  many  years  past  been  reconciled  to  the  Church  of 


P.»&  CORRESPONDENCE.  303 

England.  In  his  more  recent  works  he  has  applied  his  fine 
powers  to  the  vindication  of  the  Christian  faith,  with  an 
especial  view  to  that  particular  development.  Latterly — 
as  you  may  not  have  heard — he  has  taken  orders  and  been 
inducted  to  a  small  country  living  in  the  gift  of  the  lord 
chancellor.  Just  now,,  luckily  for  me,  he  has  come  to  the 
metropolis  to  superintend  the  publication  of  a  volume  of 
discourses  treating  of  the  poetico-philosophical  proofs  of 
Christianity  on  the  basis  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  On 
my  first  introduction  I  felt  no  little  embarrassment  as  to 
the  mode  of  combining  what  I  had  to  say  to  the  author  of 
'Queen  Mab/  the  'Kevolt  of  Islam"  and  'Prometheus 
Unbound"  with  such  acknowledgments  as  might  be  accept 
able  to  a  Christian  minister  and  zealous  upholder  of  the 
established  church.  lint  Shelley  soon  placed  me  at  my 
ease.  Standing  where  he  now  does,  and  reviewing  all  his 
successive  productions  from  a  higher  point,  he  assures  me 
that  there  is  a  harmony,  an  order,  a  regular  procession, 
which  enables  him  to  lay  his  hand  upon  anyone  of  the  ear 
lier  poems  and  say:  '  This  is  my  work!'  with  precisely  the 
same  complacency  of  conscience  wherewithal  he  contem 
plates  the  volume  of  discourses  above  mentioned.  They 
are  like  the  successive  steps  of  of  a  staircase,  the  lowest  of 
which,  in  the  depth  of  chaos,  is  as  essential  to  the  support 
of  the  whole  as  the  highest  and  final  one,  resting  upon  the 
threshold  of  the  heavens.  I  felt  half  inclined  to  ask  him 
what  would  have  been  his  fate  had  he  perished  on  the  lower 
steps  of  his  staircase  instead  of  building  his  way  aloft  into 
the  celestial  brightness. 

"  How  all  this  may  be  I  neither  pretend  to  understand 
nor  greatly  care,  so  long  as  Shelley  has  really  climbed,  as 
it  seems  he  has,  from  a  lower  region  to  a  loftier  one. 
Without  touching  upon  other  religious  merits,  I  consider 
the  productions  of  his  maturity  superior,  as  poems,  to  those 
of  his  youth.  They  are  warmer  with  human  love,  which 
has  served  as  an  interpreter  between  his  mind  and  the  mul 
titude.  The  author  has  learned  to  dip  his  pen  oftener  into 
his  heart,  and  has  thereby  avoided  the  faults  into  which  a 
too  exclusive  use  of  fancy  and  intellect  are  wont  to  betray 
him.  Formerly  his  page  was  often  little  other  than  a  con 
crete  arrangement  of  chrystallizations,  or  even  of  icicles,  as 
cold  as  they  were  brilliant.  Xow  you  take  it  to  your  heart 
and  are  conscious  of  a  heart- warmth  responsive  to  vour 


304  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

own.  In  his  private  character  Shelley  can  hardly  have 
grown  more  gentle,  kind  and  affectionate  than  his  friends 
always  represented  him  to  be  up  to  that  disastrous  night 
when  he  was  drowned  in  the  Mediterranean.  Nonsense 
again — sheer  nonsense!  What  am  I  babbling  about?  I 
was  thinking  of  that  old  figment  of  his  being  lost  in  the 
Bay  of  Spezia  and  washed  ashore  near  Via  Reggio,  and 
burned  to  ashes  on  a  funeral  pyre  with  wine  and  spices  and 
frankincense,  while  Byron  stood  on  the  beach  and  beheld 
a  flame  of  marvelous  beauty  ri'se  heaven  ward  from  the  dead 
poet's  heart,  and  that  his  fire-purified  relics  were  finally 
buried  near  his  child  in  Roman  earth.  If  all  this  hap 
pened  twenty-three  years  ago,  how  could  I  have  met  the 
drowned  and  burned  and  buried  man  here  in  London  only 
yesterday? 

"  Before  quitting  the  subject  I  may  mention  that  Dr. 
Reginald  Heber,  heretofore  Bishop  of  Calcutta,  but  re 
cently  translated  to  a  see  in  England,  called  on  Shelley 
while  I  was  with  him.  They  appeared  to  be  on  terms  of 
very  cordial  intimacy,  and  are  said  to  have  a  joint-poem  in 
contemplation.  What  a  strange,  incongruous  dream  is  the 
life  of  man? 

"  Coleridge  has  at  last  finished  his  poem  of  '  Christabel;' 
it  will  be  issued  entire  by  old  John  Murray  in  the  course 
of  the  present  publishing  season.  The  poet,  I  hear,  is  vis 
ited  with  a  troublesome  affection  of  the  tongue  which  has 
put  a  period,  or  some  lesser  stop,  to  the  life-long  discourse 
that  has  hitherto  been  flowing  from  his  lips.  He  will  not 
survive  it  above  a  month  unless  his  accumulation  of  ideas 
be  sluiced  off  in  some  other  way.  Wordsworth  died  only 
a  week  or  two  ago.  Heaven  rest  his  soul  and  grant  that 
he  may  not  have  completed  the  'Excursion'!  Methinks 
I  am  sick  of  everything  he  wrote,  except  his  '  Laodamin/ 
It  is  very  sad,  this  inconstancy  of  the  mind  to  the  poets 
whom  it  once  worshiped.  Southey  is  as  hale  as  ever,  and 
writes  with  his  usual  diligence.  Old  Gifford  is  still  alive, 
in  the  extremity  of  age,  and  with  most  pitiable  decay  of 
what  little  sharp  and  narrow  intellect  the  devil  had  gifted 
him  withal.  One  hates  to  allow  such  a  man  the  privilege 
of  growing  old  and  infirm.  It  takes  away  our  speculative 
license  of  kicking  him. 

"  Keats?  No,  I  have  not  seen  him,  except  across  a  crowd 
ed  street,  with  coaches,  drays,  horsemen,  cabs,  omnibuses, 


PSS  CORRESPONDENCE.  805 

foot-passengers,  and  divers  other  sensual  obstructions,  in 
tervening  between  his  small  and  slender  figure  and  my 
eager  glance.  I  would  fain  have  met  him  on  the  seashore, 
or  beneath  a  natural  arch  of  forest-trees  or  the  Gothic 
arch  of  an  old  cathedral,  or  among  Grecian  ruins,  or  at  a 
glimmering  fireside  on  the  verge  of  evening,  or  at  the  twi 
light  entrance  of  a  cave  into  the  dreamy  depths  of  which 
he  would  have  led  me  by  the  hand — anywhere,  in  short, 
save  at  Temple  bar,  where  his  presence  was  blotted  out  by 
the  porter-swollen  bulks  of  these  gross  Englishmen.  I 
stood  and  watched  him  fading  away,  fading  away,  along 
the  pavement,  and  could  hardly  tell  whether  he  were  an 
actual  man  or  a  thought  that  had  slipped  out  of  my  own 
mind  and  clothed  itself  in  human  form  and  habiliments 
merely  to  beguile  me.  At  one  moment  he  put  his  hand 
kerchief  to  his  lips,  and  withdrew  it,  I  am  almost  certain, 
stained  with  blood.  You  never  saw  anything  so  fragile  as 
his  person.  The  truth  is  Keats  has  all  his  life  felt  the 
eifects  of  that  terrible  bleeding  at  the  lungs  caused  by  the 
article  on  his  •'  Endymion  '  in  the  Quarterly  Review,  and 
which  so  nearly  brought  him  to  the  grave.  Ever  since  he 
has  glided  about  the  world  like  a  ghost,  sighing  a  melan 
choly  tone  in  the  ear  of  here  and  there  a  friend,  but  never 
sending  forth  his  voice  to  greet  the  multitude.  I  can 
hardly  think  him  a  great  poet.  The  burden  of  a  mighty 
genius  would  not  have  been  imposed  upon  shoulders  so 
physically  frail  and  a  spirit  so  infirmly  sensitive.  Great 
poets  should  have  iron  sinews. 

"  Yet  Keats,  though  for  so  many  years  he  has  given 
nothing  to  the  world,  is  understood  to  have  devoted  himself 
to  the  composition  of  an  epic  poem.  Some  passages  of  it 
have  been  communicated  to  the  inner  circle  of  his  admirers, 
and  impressed  them  as  the  loftiest  strains  that  have  been 
audible  on  earth  since  Milton's*  days.  If  I  can  obtain 
copies  of  these  specimens,  I  will  ask  you  to  present  them 
to  James  Russell  Lowell,  who  seems  to  be  one  of  the  poet's 
most  fervent  and  worthiest  worshipers.  The  information 
took  me  by  surprise.  I  had  supposed  that  all  Keats' 
poetic  incense,  without  being  embodied  in  human  language, 
floated  up  to  heaven  and  mingled  with  the  songs  of  the 
immortal  choristers,  who  perhaps  were  conscious  of  an  un 
known  voice  among  them  and  thought  their  melody  the 
sweeter  for  it,  But  it  is  not  so;  he,  has  positively  written 


306  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

a  poem  on  the  subject  of  '  Paradise  Regained/  though  in 
another  sense  than  that  which  presented  itself  to  the  mind 
of  Milton.  In  compliance,  it  may  be  imagined,  with  the 
dogma  of  those  who  pretend  that  all  epic  possibilities  in 
the  past  history  of  the  world  are  exhaused,  Keats  has 
thrown  his  poem  forward  into  an  indefinitely  remote 
futurity.  He  pictures  mankind  amid  the  closing  circum 
stances  of  the  time-long  warfare  between  Good  and  Evil. 
Our  race  is  on  the  eve  of  its  final  triumph.  Man  is  within 
the  last  stride  of  perfection;  woman,  redeemed  from  the 
thraldom  against  which  our  sybil  uplifts  so  powerful  and 
so  sad  a  remonstance,  stands  equal  by  his  side  or  communes 
for  herself  with  angels;  the  Earth,  sympathizing  with  her 
children's  happier  state,  has  clothed  herself  in  such  luxu 
riant  and  loving  beauty  as  no  eye  ever  witnessed  since  our 
first  parents  saw  the  sun  rise  over  dewy  Eden.  Nor  then, 
indeed,  for  this  is  the  fulfillment  of  what  was  then  but  a 
golden  promise.  But  the  picture  has  its  shadows.  There 
remains  to  mankind  another  perH — a  last  encounter  with 
the  Evil  Principle.  Should  the  battle  go  against  us,  we 
sink  back  into  the  slime  and  misery  of  ages.  If  we 
triumph.  But  it  demands  a  poet's  eye  to  contemplate  the 
splendor  of  such  a  consummation  and  not  to  be  dazzled. 

"  To  this  great  work  Keats  is  said  to  have  brought  so 
deep  and  tender  a  spirit  of  humanity  that  the  poem  has  all 
the  sweet  and  warm  interest  of  a  village  tale,  no  less  than 
the  grandeur  which  befits  so  high  a  theme.  Such,  at  least, 
is  the  perhaps  partial  representation  of  his  friends;  for  I 
have  not  read  or  heard  even  a  single  line  of  the  performance 
in  question.  Keats,  I  am  told,  withholds  it  from  the  press 
under  an  idea  that  the  age  has  not  enough  of  spiritual  in 
sight  to  receive  it  worthily.  I  do  not  like  this  distrust;  it 
makes  me  distrust  the  poet.  The  universe  is  waiting  to 
respond  to  the  highest  word  that  the  best  child  of  time 
and  immortality  can  utter.  If  it  refuse  to  listen  it  is  be 
cause  he  mumbles  and  stammers  or  discourses  things  un 
seasonable  and  foreign  to  the  purpose. 

"  I  visted  the  House  of  Lords  the  other  day  to  hear 
Canning,  who,  you  know,  is  now  a  peer  with  I  forget  what 
title.  He  disappointed  me.  Time  blunts  both  point  and 
edge  and  does  great  mischief  to  men  of  his  order  of  intel 
lect.  Then  I  stepped  into  the  lower  house  and  listened  to 
$  few  \vords  from  Cobbett,  who  looked  as  earthy  a§  a  real 


P.'S  CORRESPONDENCE.  307 

clodhopper — or  rather  as  if  he  had  lain  a  dozen  years  be 
neath  the  clods.  The  men  whom  I  meet  nowadays  often 
impress  me  thus — probably  because  my  spirits  are  not  very 
good  and  lead  me  to  think  much  about  graves  with  the 
long  grass  upon  them  and  weather-worn  epitaphs  and  dry 
bones  of  people  who  made  noise  enough  in  their  day,  but 
now  can  only  clatter,  clatter,  clatter  when  the  sexton's 
spade  disturbs  them.  Were  it  only  possible  to  find  out 
who  are  alive  and  who  dead  it  would  contribute  in 
finitely  to  my  peace  of  mind.  Every  day  of  my  life  some 
body  comes  and  stares  me  in  the  face  whom  I  had  quietly 
blotted  out  of  the  tablet  of  living  men  and  trusted  never 
more  to  be  pestered  with  the  sight  or  sound  of  him.  For 
instance,  going  to  Drury  Lane  Theater  a  few  evenings 
since  up  rose  before  me  in  the  ghost  of  Hamlet's  father 
the  bodily  presence  of  the  elder  Kean,  who  did  die,  or 
ought  to  have  died  in  some  drunken  fit  or  other,  so  long 
ago  that  his  fame  is  scarcely  traditionary  now.  His  powers 
are  quite  gone;  he  was  rather  the  ghost  of  himself  than 
the  ghost  of  the  Danish  king. 

"  In  the  stage-box  sat  several  elderly  and  decrepit  peo 
ple,  and  among  them  a  stately  ruin  of  a  woman  on  a  very 
large  scale  with  a  profile — for  I  did  not  see  her  front  face 
— that  stamped  itself  into  my  brain  as  a  seal  impresses  hot 
wax.  By  the  tragic  gesture  with  which  she  took  a  pinch 
of  snuff  I  was  sure  it  must  be  Mrs.  tSiddons.  Her  brother, 
John  Kemble,  sat  behind,  a  broken-down  figure,  but  still 
with  a  kingly  majesty  about  him.  In  lieu  of  all  former 
achievements  nature  enables  him  to  look  the  part  of  Lear 
far  better  than  in  the  meridian  of  his  genius.  Charles 
Mathews  was  likewise  there,  but  a  paralytic  affection  has 
distorted  his  once  mobile  countenance  into  a  most  dis- 
agreeble  one-sidedness  from  which  he  could  no  more 
wrench  it  into  proper  from  than  he  could  rearrange  the 
face  of  the  great  globe  itself.  It  looks  as  if,  for  the  joke's 
sake,  the  poor  man  had  twisted  his  features  into  an  ex 
pression  at  once  the  most  ludicrous  and  horrible  that  he 
could  contrive  and  at  that  very  moment,  as  a  judgment 
for  making  himself  so  hideous,  an  avenging  Providence 
had  seen  fit  to  petrify  him.  Since  it  is  out  of  his  own 
power  I  would  gladly  assist  him  to  change  countenance, 
for  his  ngly  visage  haunts  me  both  at  noontide  and  night 
time.  Some,  other  players  of  the  past  generation 


308  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

present,  but  none  that  greatly  interested  me.  It  behoves 
actors  more  than  all  other  men  of  publicity  to  vanish  from 
the  scene  betimes.  Being,  at  best,  but  painted  shadows 
flickering  on  the  wall  and  empty  sounds  that  echo  an 
other's  thought,  it  is  a  sad  disenchantment  when  the 
colors  begin  to  fade  and  the  voice  to  croak  with  age. 

*'  What  is  there  new  in  the  literary  way  on  your  side  of 
the  water?  Nothing  of  the  kind  has  come  under  my  in 
spection  except  a  volume  of  poems  published  above  a  year 
ago  by  Dr.  U  banning.  I  did  not  before  know  that  this 
eminent  writer  is  a  poet,  nor  does  the  volume  alluded  to 
exhibit  any  of  the  characteristics  as  the  author's  mind  as 
displayed  in  his  prose  works,  although  some  of  the  poems 
have  a  richness  that  is  not  merely  of  the  surface,  but  glows 
still  the  brighter  the  deeper  and  more  faithfully  you  lock 
into  them.  They  seem  carelessly  wrought;  however,  like 
those  rings  and  ornaments  of  the  very  purest  gold,  but  of 
rude  native  manufacture,  which  are  found  among  the 
gold-dust  from  Africa.  I  doubt  whether  the  American 
public  will  accept  them;  it  looks  less  to  the  assay  of  metal 
than  to  the  neat  and  cunning  manufacture.  How  slowly 
our  literature  grows  up!  Most  of  our  writers  of  promise 
have  come  to  untimely  ends.  There  was  that  wild  fellow 
John  Neal,  who  almost  turned  my  boyish  brain  with  his 
romances;  he  surely  has  long  been  dead,  else  he  never 
could  keep  himself  so  quiet.  Bryant  has  gone  to  his  last 
sleep  with  the  '  Thanatopsis'  gleaming  over  him  like  a 
sculptured  marble  sepulcher  by  moonlight.  Ilalleck,  who 
used  to  write  queer  verses  in  the  newspapers  and  published 
a  Don-Juanic  poem  called  '  Fanny/  is  defunct  as  a  poet, 
though  averred  to  be  exemplifying  the  metempsychosis  as 
a  man  of  business.  Somewhat  latter  there  was  Whittier, 
a  fiery  quaker  youth,  to  whom  the  Muse  had  perversely  as 
signed  a  battle-trumpet,  and  who  got  himself  lynched  ten 
years  agone  in  South  Carolina.  I  remember,  too,  a  Lid 
just  from  college,  Longfellow  by  name,  who  scattered 
some  delicate  verses  to  the  winds  and  went  to  Germany 
and  perished,  I  think,  of  intense  application,  at  the  Uni 
versity  of  Gottingen.  Willis,  what  a  pity!  was  lost  if  I 
recollect  rightly,  in  1833,  on  his  voyage  to  Europe, 
whither  he  was  going,  to  give  us  sketches  of  the  world's 
sunny  face.  If  these  had  lived,  they  might,  one  or  all  of 
t/l)ejn?  have  grown  to  be  I',- mi  on*  wen,, 


P.'S.  CORRESPONDENCE.  309 

"  And  yet — there  is  no  telling — it  may  be  as  well  that 
they  have  died.  I  was  myself  a  young  man  of  promise. 
Oh,  shattered  brain!  Oh,  broken  spirit  !  Where  is  the 
fulfillment  of  that  promise?  The  sad  truth  is  that  when 
fate  would  gently  disappoint  the  world  it  takes  away  the 
hopefullest  mortals  in  their  youth  when  it  would  laugh 
the  world's  hopes  to  scorn,  it  lets  them  live.  Let  me 
die  upon  this  apothegm,  for  I  shall  never  make  a  truer 
one. 

"  What  a  strange  substance  is  the  human  brain!  Or, 
rather — for  there  is  no  need  of  generalizing  the  remark— 
what  an  odd  brain  is  mine!  Would  you  believe  it? 
Daily  and  nightly  there  come  scraps  of  poetry  humming 
in  my  intellectual  ear — some  as  airy  as  bird-notes  and 
some  as  delicately  neat  as  parlor-music,  and  a  few  as  grand 
as  organ  peels — that  seem  just  such  verses  as  those  de 
parted  poets  would  have  written  had  not  an  inexorable 
destiny  snatched  them  from  their  inkstands.  They  visit 
me  in  spirit,  perhaps  desiring  to  engage  my  services  as  the 
amanuensis  of  their  posthumous  productions,  and  thus 
secure  the  endless  renown  that  they  have  forfeited  by 
going  hence  too  early.  But  1  have  my  own  business  to 
attend  to,  and,  besides,  a  medical  gentleman  who  inter 
ests  himself  in  some  little  ailments  of  mine,  advises  me 
not  to  make  too  free  use  of  pen  and  ink.  There  are 
clerks  enough  out  of  employment  who  would  be  glad  of 
such  a  job. 

•'  Good-by!  Are  you  alive  or  dead?  And  what  are  you 
about?  Still  scribbling  for  the  democratic?  And  do 
those  infernal  compositors  and  proot-readers  misprint 
your  unfortunate  productions  as  vilely  as  ever?  It  is  too 
bad.  Let  every  man  manufacture  his  own  nonsense,  say 
I.  Expect  me  home  soon  and — to  whisper  you  a  secret — 
in  company  with  the  poet  Campbell,  who  purposes  to  visit 
Wyoming  and  enjoy  the  shadow  of  the  laurels  that  he 
planted  there.  Campbell  is  now  an  old  man.  He  calls 
himself  well;  better  than  ever  in  his  life;  but  looks 
strangely  pale  and  so  shadow-like  that  one  might  almost 
poke  a  linger  through  his  densest  material.  I  tell  him  by 
way  of  joke  that  he  is  as  dim  and  forlorn  as  Memory, 
though  as  unsubstantial  as  Hope. 

"  Your  true  friend,  JP, 


310  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"  P.  S.  Pray  present  my  most  respectful  regards  to  our 
venerable  and  reverend  friend  Mr.  Brockdeii  Brown.  It 
gratifies  me  to  learn  that  a  complete  edition  of  his  works  in 
a  double-columned  octavo  volume  is  shortly  to  issue  from 
the  press  at  Philadelphia.  Tell  him  that  no  American 
writer  enjoys  a  more  classic  reputation  on  this  side  of  the 
water.  Is  old  Joel  Barlow  yet  alive  ?  Unconscionable 
man  !  Why,  he  must  have  nearly  fulfilled  his  century. 
And  does  he  meditate  an  epic  on  the  war  between  Mexico 
and  Texas,  with  machinery  contrived  on  the  principle  of 
the  steam-engine,  as  being  the  nearest  to  celestial  agency 
that  our  epoch  can  boast  ?  How  can  he  expect  ever  to  rise 
again  if,  while  just  sinking  into  his  grave,  he  persists 
in  burdening  himself  with  such  a  ponderosity  of  leaden 
verses  ?  " 


EARTH'S  HOLOCAUST.  311 


EARTH'S  HOLOCAUST. 


/ 

O:N"OE  upon  a  time — but  whether  in  the  time  past  or  time 
to  come  is  a  matter  of  little  or  no  moment — this  wide  world 
had  become  so  overburdened  with  an  accumulation  of  worn- 
out  trumpery  that  the  inhabitants  determined  to  rid  them 
selves  of  it  by  a  general  bonfire.  The  site  fixed  upon  at 
the  representation  of  the  insurance  companies,  and  as  being 
as  central  a  spot  as  any  other  on  the  globe,  was  one  of  the 
broadest  prairies  of  the  West,  where  no  human  habitation 
would  be  endangered  by  the  flames,  and  where  a  vast  as 
semblage  of  spectators  might  commodiously  admire  the 
show.  Having  a  taste  for  sights  of  this  kind,  and  imagin 
ing,  likewise,  that  the  illumination  of  the  boniire  might 
reveal  some  profundity  or  moral  truth  heretofore  hidden  in 
mist  or  darkness,  I  made  it  convenient  to  journey  thither 
and  be  present.  At  my  arrival,  although  the  heap  of  con 
demned  rubbish  was  as  yet  comparatively  small,  the  torch 
had  already  been  applied.  Amid  that  boundless  plan,  in 
the  dusk  of  the  evening,  like  a  far-off  star  alone  in  the 
firmament,  there  was  merely  visible  one  tremulous  gleam 
whence  none  could  have  anticipated  so  fierce  a  blaze  as  was 
destined  to  ensue.  With  every  moment,  however,  there 
came  foot-travelers,  women  holding  up  their  aprons,  men 
on  horseback,  wheelbarrows,  lumbering  baggage-wagons, 
and  other  vehicles,  great  and  small  and  from  far  and  near, 
laden  with  articles  that  were  judged  fit  for  nothing  but  to 
be  burned. 

"  What  materials  have  been  used  to  kindle  the  flame  ?" 
inquired  I  of  a  bystander,  for  I  was  desirous  of  knowing 
the  whole  process  of  the  affair  from  beginning  to  end. 

The  person  whom  I  addressed  was  a  grave  man,  50 
years  old  or  thereabout,  who  had  evidently  come  thither 


312  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

as  a  looker-on  ;  he  struck  me  immediately  as  having 
weighed  for  himself  the  true  value  of  life  and  its  circum 
stances  and  therefore  as  feeling  little  personal  interest  in 
whatever  judgment  the  world  might  form  of  them.  Be 
fore  answering  my  question  he  looked  me  in  the  face  by 
the  kindling  light  of  the  fire. 

"  Oh,  some  very  dry  combustibles,"  replied  he,  "and  ex 
tremely  suitable  to  the  purpose — no  other,  in  fact,  than 
yesterday's  newspapers,  last  month's  magazines  and  last 
year's  withered  leaves.  Here,  now,  comes  some  antiquated 
trash  that  will  take  fire  like  a  handful  of  shavings." 

As  he  spoke  some  rough  looking  men  advanced  to  the 
verge  of  the  bonfire  and  threw  in,  as  it  appeared,  all  the 
rubbish  of  the  herald's  office — the  blazonry  of  coat-armor, 
the  crests  and  devices  of  illustrious  families,  pedigrees  that 
extended  back  like  lines  of  light  into  the  mist  of  the  Dark 
Ages,  together  with  stars,  garters  and  embroidered  collars, 
each  of  which,  as  paltry  a  bauble  as  it  might  appear  to  the 
uninstructed  eye,  had  once  possessed  vast  significance  and 
was  still,  in  truth,  reckoned  among  the  most  precious  of 
moral  or  material  facts  by  the  worshipers  of  the  gorgeous 
past.  Mingled  with  this  confused  heap — which  was  tossed 
into  the  flames  by  armfuls  at  once — were  innumerable 
badges  of  knighthood,  comprising  those  of  all  the  Euro 
pean  sovereignties  and  Napoleon's  decoration  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor,  the  ribbons  of  which  were  entangled  with  those 
of  all  the  ancient  order  of  St.  Louis.  There,  too,  were  the 
medals  of  our  own  Society  of  Cincinnati,  by  means  of 
which  as  history  tells  us,  an  order  of  hereditary  knights 
came  near  being  constituted  out  of  the  king-quellers  of  the 
Revolution.  And,  besides,  there  were  the  patents  of 
nobility  of  German  counts  and  barons,  Spanish  grandees 
and  English  peers,  from  the  worm-eaten  instruments 
signed  by  William  the  Conqueror  down  to  the  brand  new 
parchment  of  the  latest  lord  who  has  received  his  honors 
from  the  fair  hand  of  Victoria. 

At  sight  of  these  dense  volumes  of  smoke  mingled  with 
vivid  jets  of  flame  that  gushed  and  eddied  forth  from  this 
immense  pile  of  earthly  distinctions  the  multitude  of  plc- 
bian  spectators  set  up  a  joyous  shout  and  clapped  their 
hands  with  an  emphasis  that  made  the  welkin  echo.  That 
was  their  moment  of  triumph  achieved  after  long  ages 
over  creatures  of  the  sa.me  clay  and  the  same  spiritual  iu* 


EARTH'S  HOLOCA  UST.  313 

firmities  who  had  dared  to  assume  the  privileges  due  only 
to  Heaven's  better  workmanship. 

But  now  there  rushed  toward  the  blazing  heap  a  gray- 
haired  man  of  stately  presence,  wearing  a  coat  from  the 
breast  of  which  a  star  or  other  badge  of  rank  seemed  to 
have  been  forcibly  wrenched  away,  lie  had  not  the  tokens 
of  intellectual  power  in  his  face,  but  still  there  was  the  de 
meanor — the  habitual  and  almost  native  dignity — of  one 
who  had  been  born  to  the  idea  of  his  own  social  superi 
ority  and  had  never  felt  it  questioned  till  that  moment. 

"  People,"  cried  he,  gazing  at  the  ruin  of  what  was  dear 
est  to  his  eyes  with  grief  and  wonder,  but,  nevertheless, 
with  a  degree  of  stateliness — "people,  what  have  you 
done?  This  tire  is  consuming  all  that  marked  your  ad 
vance  from  barbarism  or  that  could  have  prevented  your 
relapse  thither.  We — the  men  of  the  privileged  orders — 
were  those  who  kept  alive  from  age  to  age  the  old  chival 
rous  spirit,  the  gentle  and  generous  thought,  the  higher, 
the  purer,  the  more  refined  and  delicate  life.  With  the 
nobles,  too,  you  cast  off  the  poet,  the  painter,  the  sculptor 
— all  the  beautiful  arts — for  we  were  their  patrons  and 
created  the  atmosphere  in  which  they  flourish.  In  abolish 
ing  the  majestic  distinctions  of  rank,  society  loses  not  only 
its  grace,  but  its  steadfastness- 
More  he  would  doubtless  have  spoken,  but  here  there 
arose  an  outcry,  sportive,  contemptuous  and  indignant,  that 
altogether  drowned  the  appeal  of  the  fallen  nobleman,  in 
somuch  that,  casting  one  look  of  despair  at  his  own  half- 
burned  pedigree,  he  shrunk  back  into  the  crowd,  glad  to 
shelter  himself  under  his  new-found  insignificance. 

"Let  him  thank  his  stars  that  we  have  not  flung  him 
into  the  same  fire!"  shouted  a  rude  figure,  spurning  the 
embers  with  his  foot.  "And1  henceforth  let  no  man  dare 
to  show  a  piece  of  musty  parchment  as  his  warrant  for 
lording  it  over  his  fellows.  If  he  have  strength  of  arm, 
well  and  good;  it  is  one  species  of  superiority;  if  he  have 
wit,  wisdom,  courage,  force  of  character,  let  these  at 
tributes  do  for  him  what  they  may;  but  from  this  day  for 
ward  no  mortal  must  hope  for  place  and  consideration  by 
reckoning  up  the  moldy  bones  of  his  ancestors.  That 
nonsense  is  done  away." 

"  And  in  good  time,"  remarked  the  grave  observer  by 
my  side — in  a  low  voice,  however — "  if  no  worse  nonsense 


314  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

comes  in  its  place.  But,  at  all  events,  this  species  of  non 
sense  has  fairly  lived  out  its  life." 

There  was  little  space  to  muse  or  moralize  over  the  em 
bers  of  this  time-honored  rubbish,  for  before  it  was  half 
burned  out  there  came  another  multitude  from  beyond  the 
sea,  bearing  the  purple  robes  of  royalty  and  the  crowns, 
globes  and  scepters  of  emperors  and  kings.  All  these  had 
been  condemned  as  useless  baubles — playthings,  at  best,  fit 
only  for  the  infancy  of  the  world,  or  rods  to  govern  and 
chastise  it  in  its  nonage,  but  with  which  universal  manhood 
at  its  full-grown  stature  could  no  longer  brook  to  be  in 
sulted.  Into  such  contempt  had  these  regal  insignia  now 
fallen  that  the  gilded  crown  and  tinseled  robes  of  the 
player-king  from  Drury  Lane  Theater  had  been  thrown  in 
among  the  rest,  doubtless  as  a  mockery  of  his  brother-mon- 
archs  on  the  great  stage  of  the  world.  It  was  a  strange 
sight  to  discern  the  crown-jewels  of  England  glowing  and 
flashing  in  the  midst  of  the  fire.  Some  of  them  had  been 
delivered  down  from  the  time  of  the  Saxon  princes;  others 
were  purchased  with  vast  revenues,  or,  perchance,  ravished 
from  the  dead  brows  of  the  native  potentates  of  Hindostan; 
and  the  whole  now  blazed  with  a  dazzling  luster,  as  if  a  star 
had  fallen  in  that  spot  and  been  shattered  into  fragments. 
The  splendor  of  the  ruined  monarchy  had  no  reflection  save 
in  those  inestimable  precious  stones.  But  enough  on  this 
subject.  It  were  but  tedious  to  describe  how  the  Emperor 
of  Austria's  mantle  was  converted  to  tinder,  and  how  the 
posts  and  pillars  of  the  French  throne  became  a  heap  of 
coals  which  it  was  impossible  to  distinguish  from  those  of 
any  other  wood.  Let  me  add,  however,  that  I  noticed  one 
of  the  exiled  Poles  stirring  up  the  bonfire  with  the  czar 
of  Russia's  scepter,  which  he  afterward  flung  into  the 
flames. 

"  The  smell  of  singed  garments  is  quite  intolerable 
here,"  observed  my  new  acquaintance  as  the  breeze  en 
veloped  us  in  the  smoke  of  a  royal  wardrobe.  "  Let  us 
get  to  windward  and  see  what  they  are  doing  on  the  other 
side  of  the  bonfire." 

We  accordingly  passed  around,  and  were  just  in  time  to 
witness  the  arrival  of  a  vast  procession  of  Washingtonians 
— as  the  votaries  of  temperance  call  themselves  nowadays 
— accompanied  by  thousands  of  the  Irish  disciples  of  Father 
Mathew  with  that  great  apostle  at  their  head.  They  brought 


EAHTH  '£  HOLOCA  UST.  315 

a  rich  contribution  to  the  bonfire,  being  nothing  less  than 
all  the  hogsheads  and  barrels  of  liquor  in  the  world,,  which 
they  rolled  before  them  across  the  prairie. 

"  Ko\v,  my  children,"  cried  Father  Mathew,  when  they 
reached  the  verge  of  the  fire,  "  one  shove  more  and  the 
work  is  done.  And  now  let  us  stand  off  and  see  Satan  deal 
with  his  own  liquor." 

Accordingly,  having  placed  their  wooden  vessels  within 
reach  of  the  flames,  the  procession  stood  off  at  a  safe  dis 
tance  and  soon  beheld  them  burst  into  a  blaze  that  reached 
the  clouds  and  threatened  to  set  the  sky  itself  on  fire.  And 
well  it  might,  for  here  was  the  whole  world's  stock  of  spirit 
uous  liquors,  which,  instead  of  kindling  a  frenzied  light 
in  the  eyes  of  individual  topers,  as  of  yore,  soared  upward 
with  a  bewildering  gleam  that  startled  all  mankind.  It 
was  the  aggregate  of  that  fierce  fire  which  would  otherwise 
have  scorched  the  hearts  of  millions.  Meantime,  number 
less  bottles  of  precious  wine  were  ilung  into  the  blaze, 
which  hipped  up  the  contents  as  if  it  loved  them,  and 
grew,  like  other  drunkards,  the  merrier  and  fiercer  for 
what  it  quaffed.  Never  again  will  the  insatiable  thirst  of 
the  Fire-fiend  be  so  pampered.  Here  were  the  treasures  of 
famous  l)on-viv(tnts — liquors  that  had  been  tossed  on  ocean 
and  mellowed  in  the  sun  and  hoarded  long  in  the  recesses 
of  the  earth;  the  pale,  the  gold,  the  ruddy  juice  of  what 
ever  vineyards  were  most  delicate;  the  entire  vintage  of 
Tokay — all  mingling  in  one  stream  with  the  vile  fluids  of 
the  common  pot-house,  and  contributing  to  heighten  the 
self-same  blaze.  And  while  it  rose  in  a  gigantic  spire  that 
seemed  to  wave  against  the  arch  of  the  firmament  and 
combine  itself  with  the  light  of  stars,  the  multitude  gave 
a  shout,  as  if  the  broad  earth  were  exulting  in  its  deliver 
ance  from  the  curse  of  ages. 

But  the  joy  was  not  universal.  Many  deemed  that 
human  life  would  be  gloomier  than  ever  when  that  brief 
illumination  should  sink  down.  While  the  reformers  were 
at  work  I  overheard  muttered  expostulations  from  several 
respectable  gentlemen  with  red  noses  and  wearing  gouty 
shoes,  and  a  ragged  worthy,  whose  face  looked  like  a  hearth 
where  the  fire  is  burned  out,  now  expressed  his  discontent 
more  openly  and  boldly. 

"  What  is  this  world  good  for,"  said  the  last  toper, 
"  now  that  we  can  never  be  jolly  any  more?  What  is  to 


316  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

comfort  the  poor  man  in  sorrow  and  perplexity?  How  is 
he  to  keep  his  heart  warm  against  the  cold  winds  of  this 
cheerless  earth?  And  what  do  you  propose  to  give  him  in 
exchange  for  the  solace  that  you  take  away?  How  are  old 
friends  to  sit  together  by  the  fireside  without  a  cheerful 
glass  between  them?  A  plague  upon  your  reformation!  It 
is  a  sad  world,  a  cold  world,  a  selfish  world,  a  low  world; 
not  worth  an  honest  fellow's  living  in  now  that  good  fel 
lowship  is  gone  forever." 

This  harangue  excited  great  mirth  among  the  bystand 
ers.  But,  preposterous  as  was  the  sentiment,  I  could  not 
help  commiserating  the  forlorn  condition  of  the  last  toper, 
whose  boon-companions  had  dwindled  away  from  his  side, 
leaving  the  poor  fellow  without  a  soul  to  countenance  him 
in  sipping  his  liquor — nor,  indeed,  any  liquor  to  sip.  Not 
that  this  was  quite  the  true  state  of  the  case,  for  I  had  ob 
served  him  at  a  critical  moment  filch  a  bottle  of  fourth- 
proof  brandy  that  fell  beside  the  bonfire  and  hide  it  in  his 
pocket. 

The  spirituous  and  fermented  liquors  being  thus  dis 
posed  of,  the  zeal  of  the  reformers  next  induced  them  to 
replenish  the  fire  with  all  the  boxes  of  tea  and  bags  of 
coffee  in  the  world.  And  now  came  the  planters  of  Vir 
ginia,  bringing  their  crops  of  tobacco.  These,  being  cast 
upon  the  heap  of  inutility,  aggregated  it  to  the  size  of  a 
mountain  and  incensed  the  atmosphere  with  such  potent 
fragrance  that  methought  we  should  never  draw  pure 
breath  again.  The  present  sacrifice  seemed  to  startle  the 
lovers  of  the  weed  more  than  any  that  they  had  hitherto 
witnessed. 

*l\Yell,  they've  put  my  pipe  out,"  said  an  old  gentleman, 
flinging  it  into  the  flames  in  a  pet.  '•'  What  is  this  world 
coming  to?  Everything  rich  and  racy — all  the  spice  of 
life — is  to  be  condemned  as  useless.  Now  that  they  have 
kindled  the  bonfire,  if  these  nonsensical  reformers  would 
fling  themselves  into  it,  all  would  be  well  enough."/ 

"  Be  patient,"  responded  a  stanch  conservative;  "  it  will 
come  to  that  in  the  end.  They  will  first  fling  us  in  and 
finally  themselves." 

From  the  general  and  systematic  measures  of  reform,  I 
now  turned  to  consider  the  individual  contributions  to  this 
memorable  bonfire.  In  many  instances  these  were  of  a 
very  amusing  character.  One  poor  fellow  threw  in  his 


EARTH'S  HOLOCA  UST.  317 

empty  purse,  and  another  a  bundle  of  counterfeit  or  in- 
solvable  bank-notes.  Fashionable  ladies  threw  in  their  last 
season's  bonnets,  together  with  heaps  of  ribbons,  yellow 
lace,  and  much  other  half-worn  milliner's  ware,  all  of  which 
proved  even  more  evanescent  in  the  fire  than  it  had  been 
in  the  fashion.  A  multitude  of  lovers  of  both  sexes — dis 
carded  maids  or  bachelors  and  couples  mutually  weary  of 
one  another-^-tossed  in  bundles  of  perfumed  letters  and 
enamored  sonnets.)  A  hack-politician,  being  deprived  of 
bread  by  the  loss  of  office,  threw  in  his  teeth,  which  hap 
pened  to  be  false  ones.  The  Rev.  Sidney  Smith,  having 
voyaged  across  the  Atlantic  for  that  sole  purpose,  came  up 
to  the  bonfire  with  a  bitter  grin  and  threw  in  certain  repu 
diated  bonds,  fortified  though  they  were  with  the  broad 
seal  of  a  sovereign  State.  A  little  boy  of  five  years  old,  in 
the  premature  manliness  of  the  present  epoch,  threw  in  his 
playthings  ;  a  college  graduate,  his  diploma  ;  an  apoth 
ecary,  ruined  by  the  spread  of  homoeopathy,  his  whole  stock 
of  drugs  and  medicines;  a  physician,  his  library;  a  parson, 
his  old  sermons  ;  and  a  fine  gentleman  of  the  old  school, 
his  code  of  manners,  which  he  had  formally  written  down 
for  the  benefit  of  the  nex^  generation.  /'A  widow  resolving 
on  a  second  marriage  slyly  threw  in  her  dead  husband's 
miniature.  A  young  man  jilted  by  his  mistress  would  will 
ingly  have  flung  his  own  desperate  heart  into  the  flames, 
but  could  find  no  means  to  wrench  it  out  of  his  bosom. 
An  American  author  whose  works  were  neglected  by  the 
public  threw  his  pen  and  paper  into  the  bonfire,  and  betook 
himself  to  some  less  discouraging  occupation.  It  somewhat 
startled  me  to  overhear  a  number  of  ladies  highly  respect 
able  in  appearance  proposing  to  fling  their  gowns  and  petti 
coats  into  the  flames,  and  assume  the  garb,  together  with 
the  manners,  duties,  offices  and  responsibilities,  of  the 
opposite  sex. 

What  favor  was  accorded  to  the  scheme  I  am  unable  to 
say,  my  attention  being  suddenly  drawn  to  a  poor  deceived 
and  half-delirious  girl,  who,  exclaiming  that  she  was  the 
most  worthless  thing  alive  or  dead,  attempted  to  cast  her 
self  into  the  fire  amid  all  that  wrecked  and  broken  trum 
pery  of  the  world.  A  good  man,  however,  ran  to  her 
rescue. 

"  Patience,  my  poor  girl  !  "  said  he  as  he  drew  her  back 
from  the  fierce  embrace  of  the  destroying  angel.  "Be 


318  MOSSES  FROM  Aft  OLD  MANSE. 

patient  and  abide  Heaven's  will.  So  long  as  you  possess  a 
living  soul,  all  may  be  restored  to  its  first  freshness.  These 
things  of  matter  and  creations  of  human  fantasy  are  fit  for 
nothing  but  to  be  burned,  when  once  they  have  had  their 
day.  But  your  day  is  eternity." 

"Yes,"  said  the  wretched  girl,  whose  frenzy  seemed  now 
to  have  sunk  down  into  deep  despondency  ;  "  yes,  and  the 
sunshine  is  blotted  out  of  it  !  " 

It  was  now  rumored  among  the  spectators  that  all  the 
weapons  and  munitions  of  war  were  to  be  thrown  into  the 
bonfire,  with  the  exception  of  the  world's  stock  of  gunpow 
der,  which,  as  the  safest  mode  of  disposing  of  it,  had  al 
ready  been  drowned  in  the  sea.  This  intelligence  seemed 
to  awuken  great  diversity  of  opinion.  The  hopeful  philan 
thropist  esteemed  it  a  token  that  the  millennium  was  al 
ready  come,  while  persons  of  another  stamp,  in  whose  view 
mankind  was  a  breed  of  bull-dogs,  prophesied  that  all  the 
old  stoutness,  fervor,  nobleness,  generosity  and  magnanimity 
of  the  race  would  disappear,  these  qualities,  as  they  af 
firmed,  requiring  blood  for  their  nourishment.  They  com 
forted  themselves,  however,  in  the  belief  that  the  proposed 
abolition  of  war  was  impracticable  for  any  length  of  time 
together. 

Be  that  as  it  might,  numberless  great  guns  whose  thunder 
had  long  been  the  voice  of  battle — the  artillery  of  the  Ar 
mada,  the  battering  trains  of  Malborough  and  the  adverse 
cannon  of  Napoleon  and  Wellington — were  trundled  into 
the  midst  of  the  fire.  By  the  continual  addition  of  dry 
combustibles  it  had  now  waxed  so  intense  that  neither  brass 
nor  iron  could  withstand  it.  It  was  wonderful  to  behold 
how  these  terrible  instruments  of  slaughter  melted  away 
like  playthings  of  wax.  Then  the  armies  of  the  earth 
wheeled  around  the  mighty  furnace,  with  their  military 
music  playing  triumphant  marches,  and  flung  in  their  mus 
kets  and  swords.  The  standard-bearers,  likewise,  cast  one 
look  upward  at  their  banners,  all  tattered  with  shot-holes 
and  inscribed  with  the  names  of  victorious  fields,  and,  giv 
ing  them  a  last  flourish  on  the  breeze,  they  lowered  them 
into  the  flame,  which  snatched  them  upward  in  its  rush 
toward  the  clouds.  This  ceremony  being  over,  the  world 
was  left  without  a  single  weapon  in  its  hands,except,  possi 
bly,  a  few  old  king's  arms  and  rusty  swords,  and  other  tro 
phies  of  the  revolution,  in  some  of  our  state  armories. 


EARTH'S  HOLOGA  UST.  319 

And  now  the  drums  were  beaten  and  the  trumpets  brayed 
all  together,,  as  a  prelude  to  the  proclamation  of  universal 
and  eternal  peace  and  the  announcement  that  glory  was  no 
longer  to  be  won  by  blood,  but  that  it  would  henceforth  be 
the  contention  of  the  human  race  to  work  out  the  greatest 
mutual  good,  and  that  beneficence  in  the  future  annals  of 
the  earth  would  claim  the  praise  of  valor.  The  blessed 
tidings  were  accordingly  promulgated,  and  caused  infinite 
rejoicings  among  those  who  had  stood  aghast  at  the  horror 
and  absurdity  of  war. 

But  I  saw  a  grim  smile  pass  over  the  seared  visage  of  a 
stately  old  commander — by  his  war-worn  figure  and  rich 
military  dress  he  might  have  been  one  of  ISopoleon's  fa 
mous  marshals — who,  with  the  rest  of  the  world's  soldiery, 
had  just  flung  away  the  sword  that  had  been  familiar  to 
his  right  hand  for  half  a  century. 

"Ay,  ay!"  grumbled  he.  "  Let  them  proclaim  what 
they  please,  but  in  the  end  we  shall  find  that  all  this  foolery 
lias  only  made  more  work  for  the  armorers  and  cannon- 
founders." 

"  Why,  sir,"  exclaimed  I,  in  astonishment,  "  do  you  im 
agine  that  the  human  race  will  ever  so  far  return  on  the 
steps  of  its  past  madness  as  to  Aveld  another  sword  or  cast 
another  cannon?  " 

<(  There  will  be  no  need,"  observed,  with  a  sneer,  one 
who  neither  felt  benevolence  nor  had  faith  in  it.  "  When 
Cain  wished  to  slay  his  brother,  he  was  at  no  loss  for  a 
weapon." 

"  \Ve  shall  see,"  replied  the  veteran  commander.  "  If  I 
am  mistaken,  so  much  the  better;  but  in  my  opinion,  with 
out  pretending  to  philosophize  about  the  matter,  the  neces 
sity  of  war  lies  far  deeper  than  these  honest  gentlemen  sup 
pose.  What!  Is  there  a  field  for  all  the  petty  disputes  of 
individuals,  and  shall  there  be  no  great  law-court  for  the 
settlement  of  national  difficulties?  The  battle-field  is  the 
only  court  where  such  suits  can  be  tried." 

"  You  forget,  general,"  rejoined  I,  "  that  in  this  ad 
vanced  stage  of  civilization  Reason  and  Philanthropy  com 
bined  will  constitute  just  such  a  tribunal  as  is  requisite." 

"Ah!  I  had  forgotten  that,  indeed,"  said  the  old  war 
rior  as  he  limped  away. 

The  fire  was  now  to  be  replenished  with  materials  that 
had  hitherto  been  considered  of  even  greater  importance  to 


320  M088K8  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

the  well-being  of  society  than  the  warlike  munitions  which 
we  had  already  seen  consumed.  A  body  of  reformers  had 
traveled  all  over  the  earth  in  quest  of  the  machinery  by 
which  the  different  nations  were  accustomed  to  inflict  the 
punishment  of  death.  A  shudder  passed  through  the  mul 
titude  as  these  ghastly  emblems  were  dragged  forward. 
Even  the  flames  seemed  at  first  to  shrink  away,  displaying 
the  shape  and  murderous  contrivance  of  each  in  a  full  blaze 
of  light  which  of  itself  was  sufficient  to  convince  mankind 
of  the  long  and  deadly  error  of  human  law.  Those  old  im 
plements  of  cruelty — those  horrible  monsters  of  mechanism, 
those  inventions  which  it  seemed  to  demand  something 
worse  than  man's  natural  heart  to  contrive,  and  which  had 
lurked  in  the  dusky  nooks  of  ancient  prisons,  the  subject  of 
terror-stricken  legend — were  now  brought  forth  to  view. 
Headsmen's  axes  with  the  rust  of  noble  and  royal  blood 
upon  them  and  a  vast  collection  of  halters  that  had  choked 
the  breath  of  plebeian  victims,  were  thrown  in  together.  A 
shout  greeted  the  arrival  of  the  guillotine,  which  was  thrust 
forward  on  the  same  wheels  that  had  borne  it  from  one  to 
another  of  the  blood-stained  streets  of  Paris.  But  the 
loudest  roar  of  applause  went  up,  telling  the  distant  sky  of 
the  triumph  of  the  earth's  redemption,  when  the  gallows 
made  its  appearance.  An  ill-looking  fellow,  however, 
rushed  forward,  and,  putting  himself  in  the  path  of  the 
reformers,  bellowed  hoarsely  and  fought  with  brute-fury  to 
stay  their  progress. 

It  was  little  matter  of  surprise,  perhaps,  that  the  execu 
tioner  should  thus  do  his  best  to  vindicate  and  uphold  the 
machinery  by  which  he  himself  had  his  livelihood  and 
worthier  individuals  their  death.  But  it  deserved  special 
note  that  men  of  a  far  different  sphere — even  of  that  class 
in  whose  guardianship  the  world  is  apt  to  trust  its  benev 
olence — were  found  to  take  the  hangman's  view  of  the 
question. 

"Stay,  my  brethren!"  cried  one  of  them.  "You  are 
misled  by  a  false  philanthropy;  you  know  not  what  you  do. 
The  gallows  is  a  Heaven-ordained  instrument;  bear  it  back, 
then,  reverently  and  set  it  up  in  its  old  place,  else  the  world 
will  fall  to  speedy  ruin  and  desolation!" 

"Onward,  onward!"  shouted  a  leader  in  the  reform. 
"Into  the  flames  with  the  accursed  instrument  of  man's 
bloody  policy!  How  can  human  law  inculcate  benevolence 


EARTWS  HOLOCA  UST.  321 

aiul  love  while  it  persists  in  setting  up  the  gallows  as  its 
chief  symbol?  One  heave  more,  good  friends,  and  the 
world  will  be  redeemed  from  its  greatest  error." 

A  thousand  hands,  that,  nevertheless,  loathed  the  touch, 
now  lent  their  assistance  and  thrust  the  ominous  burden 
far,  far  into  the  center  of  the  raging  furnace.  There  its 
fatal  and  abhorred  image  was  beheld,  first  black,  then  a  red 
coal,  then  ashes. 

"  That  was  well  done!"  exclaimed  I. 

"  Yes,  it  was  well  done,"  replied,  but  with  less  enthusi 
asm  than  I  expected,  the  thoughtful  observer  who  was  still 
at  my  side;  "  well  done  if  the  world  be  good  enough  for 
the  measure.  Death,  however,  is  an  idea  that  cannot  easily 
be  dispensed  with  in  any  condition  between  the  primal  in 
nocence  and  the  other  purity  and  perfection  which  per 
chance  we  are  destined  to  attain  after  traveling  round  the 
full  circle.  Hut,  at  all  events  it  is  well  that  the  experi 
ment  should  now  be  tried." 

"Too  cold!  too  cold!"  impatiently  exclaimed  the  young 
and  ardent  leader  in  this  triumph.  **  Let  the  heart  have 
its  voice  here  as  well  as  the  intellect.  And  as  for  ripeness, 
and  as  for  progress,  let  mankind  always  do  the  highest, 
kindest,  noblest  thing  that  at  any  given  period  it  has  at 
tained  the  perception  of,  and  surely  that  thing  cannot  be 
wrong  nor  wrongly  timed." 

I  know  not  whether  it  were  the  excitement  of  the  scene 
or  whether  the  good  people  around  the  bonfire  were  really 
growing  more  enlightened  every  instant,  but  they  now  pro 
ceeded  to  measures  in  the  full  length  of  which  1  was  hardly 
prepared  to  keep  them  company.  For  instance,  some 
threw  their  marriage  certificates  into  the  mimes  and  de 
clared  themselves  candidates  for  a  higher,  holier  and  more 
comprehensive  union  than  that  which  had  subsisted  from 
the  birth  of  time  under  the  form  of  the  connubial  tie. 
Others  hastened  to  the  vaults  of  banks  and  to  the  coffers 
of  the  rich — all  of  which  were  open  to  the  first  comer  on 
this  fated  occasion — and  brought  entire  bales  of  paper 
money  to  enliven  the  blaze,  and  tons  of  coin  to  be  melted 
down  by  its  intensity.  Henceforth,  they  said,  universal 
benevolence,  uncoined  and  exhaustless,  was  to  be  the  golden 
currency  of  the  world.  At  this  intelligence  the  bankers 
and  speculators  in  the  stocks  grew  pule  and  a  pickpocket, 
who  had  reaped  a  rich  harvest  among  the  crowd,  fell  down 


322  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

in  a  deadly  fainting-fit.  A  few  men  of  business  burned 
their  day-books  and  ledgers,  the  notes  and  obligations  of 
their  creditors,  and  all  other  evidences  of  debts  due  to 
themselves,  while  perhaps  a  somewhat  larger  number  satis 
fied  their  zeal  for  reform  with  the  sacrifice  of  any  uncom 
fortable  recollection  of  their  own  indebtment.  There  was 
then  a  cry  that  the  period  was  arrived  when  the  title-deeds 
of  landed  property  should  be  given  to  the  flames  and  the 
whole  soil  of  the  earth  revert  to  the  public  from  whom  it 
had  been  wrongfully  abstracted  and  most  unequally  distri 
buted  among  individuals.  Another  party  demanded  that 
all  written  constitutions,  set  forms  of  government,  legisla 
tive  acts,  statute-books,  and  everything  else  on  which 
human  invention  had  endeavored  to  stamp  its  arbitrary 
laws,  should  at  once  be  destroyed,  leaving  the  consum 
mated  world  as  free  as  the  man  first  created. 

Whether  any  ultimate  action  was  taken  with  regard  to 
these  propositions  is  beyond  my  knowledge,  for  just  then 
some  matters  were  in  progress  that  concerned  my  sympa 
thies  more  nearly. 

"See!  see!  What  heaps  of  books  and  pamphlets!" cried 
a  fellow  who  did  not  seem  to  be  a  lover  of  literature. 
"Now  we  shall  have  a  glorious  blaze!" 

"That's  just  the  thing,"  said  a  modern  philosopher. 
"Now  we  shall  get  rid  of  the  weight  of  dead  men's 
thought  which  has  hitherto  pressed  so  heavily  on  the  liv 
ing  intellect  that  it  has  been  incompetent  to  any  effectual 
self-exertion.  Well  done,  my  lads!  Into  the  fire  with 
them!  Now  you  are  enlightening  the  world  indeed! 

"  But  what  is  to  become  of  the  trade?"  cried  a  frantic 
bookseller. 

"Oh,  by  all  means  let  them  accompany  their  merchan 
dise,"  coolly  observed  an  author.  "It  will  be  a  noble 
funeral-pile." 

The  truth  was  that  the  human  race  had  now  reached  a 
stage  of  progress  so  far  beyond  what  the  wisest  and  wittiest 
men  of  former  ages  had  ever  dreamed  of  that  it  would  have 
been  a  manifest  absurdity  to  allow  the  earth  to  be  any 
longer  encumbered  with  their  poor  achievements  in  the 
literary  line.  Accordingly,  a  thorough  and  searching  in 
vestigation  had  swept  the  booksellers'  shops,  hawkers' 
stands,  public  and  private  libraries,  and  even  the  little 
bookshelf  by  the  country  fireside,  and  had  brought  tliQ 


EARTH'S  HOLOCA  UST.  323 

world's  entire  mass  of  printed  paper,  bound  or  in  sheets,  to 
swell  the  already  mountain -bulk  of  our  illustrious  bonfire. 
Thick,  heavy  folios  containing  the  labors  of  lexicographers, 
commentators  and  encyclopedists  were  flung  in,  and,  fall 
ing  among  the  embers  with  a  leaden  thump,  smouldered 
away  to  ashes  like  rotten  wood.  The  small,  richly-gilt 
French  tomes  of  the  last  age,  with  the  hundred  volumes 
of  Voltaire  among  them,  went  off  in  a  brilliant  shower  of 
sparkles  and  little  jets  of  flame,  while  the  current  literature 
of  the  same  nation  burned  red  and  blue  and  threw  an  in 
fernal  light  over  the  visages  of  the  spectators,  converting 
them  all  to  the  aspect  of  party-colored  fiends.  A  collection 
of  German  stories  emitted  a  scent  of  brimstone.  The 
English  standard  authors  made  excellent  fuel,  generally 
exhibiting  the  properties  of  sound  oak  logs.J  Milton's 
works,  in  particular,  sent  up  a  powerful  blaze,  gradually 
reddening  into  a  coal  which  promised  to  endure  longer 
than  almost  any  other  material  of  the  pile.  From  Shaks- 
peare  there  gushed  a  flame  of  such  marvelous  splendor  that 
men  shaded  their  eyes  as  against  the  sun's  meridian  glory, 
nor  even  when  the  works  of  his  own  elucidators  were  flung 
upon  him  did  he  cease  to  flash  forth  a  dazzling  radiance 
from  beneath  the  ponderous  heap.  It  is  my  belief  that  he 
is  still  blazing  as  fervidly  as  ever. 

"  Could  a  poet  but  light  a  lamp  at  that  glorious  flame," 
remarked  I,  "he  might  then  consume  the  midnight  oil  to 
some  .good  purpose. " 

"  That  is  the  very  thing  which  modern  poets  have  been 
too  apt  to  do — or,  at  least,  to  attempt,"  answered  a  critic. 
"  The  chief  benefit  to  be  expected  from  this  conflagration 
of  past  literature  undoubtedly  is  that  writers  will  hence 
forth  be  compelled  to  light  their  lamps  at  the  sun  or 
stars." 

"  If  they  can  reach  so  high,"  said  I.  "  But  that  task 
requires  a  giant  who  may  afterward  distribute  the  light 
among  inferior  men.  It  is  not  every  one  that  can  steal 
the  fire  from  heaven,  like  Prometheus;  but  when  once 
he  had  done  the  deed  a  thousand  hearths  were  kindled 
by  it." 

It  amazed  me  much  to  observe  how  indefinite  was  the 
proportion  between  the  physical  mass  of  any  given  author 
and  the  property  of  brilliant  and  long-continued  combus 
tion.  For  instance,  there  was  not  a  quarto  volume  of  the 


324  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSK. 

last  century — nor,  indeed,  of  the  present — that  could  com 
pete  iu.  that  particular  with  a  child's  little  gilt-covered  book 
containing  Mother  Goose's  melodies.  The  "  Life  and 
Death  of  Tom  Thumb  "  outlasted  the  biography  of  Marl- 
borough.  An  epic — indeed,  a  dozen  of  them — was  con 
verted  to  white  ashes  before  the  single  sheet  of  an  old  bal 
lad  was  half  consumed.  In  more  than  one  case,  too,  when 
volumes  of  applauded  verse  proved  incapable  of  anything 
better  than  a  stifling  smoke,  an  unregarded  ditty  of  some 
nameless  bard — perchance  in  the  corner  of  a  newspaper — 
soared  up  among  the  stars  with  a  flame  as  brilliant  as  their 
own.  Speaking  of  the  properties  of  flame,  methought 
Shelley's  poetry  emitted  a  purer  light  than  almost  any 
other  productions  of  his  day,  contrasting  beautifully  with 
the  fitful  and  lurid  gleams  and  gushes  of  black  vapor  that 
flashed  and  eddied  from  the  volumes  of  Lord  Byron.  As 
for  Tom  Moore,  some  of  his  songs  diffused  an  odor  like  a 
burning  pastille. 

I  felt  particular  interest  in  watching  the  combustion  of 
American  authors,  and  scrupulously  noted  by  my  watfch 
the  precise  number  of  moments  that  changed  most  of  them 
from  shabbily-printed  books  to  indistinguishable  ashes.  It 
would  be  invidious,  however,  if  not  perilous,  to  betray  these 
awful  secrets;  so  that  I  shall  content  myself  with  observ 
ing  that  it  was  not  invariably  the  writer  most  frequent  in 
the  public  mouth  that  made  the  most  splendid  appearance 
in  the  bonfire.  I  especially  remember  that  a  great  deal  of 
excellent  inflammability  was  exhibited  in  a  thin  volume  of 
poems  by  Ellery  Channing,  although,  to  speak  the  truth, 
there  were  certain  portions  that  hissed  and  spluttered  in  a 
very  disagreeable  fashion.  A  curious  phenomenon  occur 
red  in  reference  to  several  writers,  native  as  well  as  foreign. 
Their  books,  though  of  highly  respectable  figure,  instead 
of  bursting  into  a  blaze,  or  even  smoldering  out  their  sub 
stance  in  smoke,  suddenly  melted  away  in  a  manner  that 
proved  them  to  be  ice. 

If  it  be  no  lack  of  modesty  to  mention  my  own  works,  it 
must  here  be  confessed  that  Hooked  for  them  with  fatherly 
interest,  but  in  vain.  Too  probably  they  were  changed  to 
vapor  by  the  first  action  of  the  heat;  at  best,  I  can  only 
hope  that  in  their  quiet  way  they  contributed  a  glimmering 
spark  or  two  to  the  splendor  of  the  evening. 

"Alas!  and  woe  is  me!"  thus  bemoaned  himself  a  heavy- 


EARTWS  HOLOCA  UST.  325 

looking  gentleman  in  green  spectacles.  "  The  world  is  ut 
terly  ruined,  and  there  is  nothing  to  live  for  any  longer. 
The  business  of  my  life  is  snatched  from  me.  Not  a  vol 
ume  to  be  had  for  love  or  money!" 

"  This,"  remarked  the  sedate  observer  beside  me,  "  is  a 
bookworm — one  of  those  men  who  are  born  to  gnaw  dead 
thoughts.  His  clothes,  you  see,  are  covered  with  the  dust 
of  libraries.  He  has  no  inward  fountain  of  ideas,  and,  in 
good  earnest,  now  that  the  old  stock  is  abolished,  I  do  not 
see  what  is  to  become  of  the  poor  fellow.  Have  you  no  word 
of  comfort  for  him?" 

"  My  dear  sir,"  said  I  to  the  desperate  bookworm,  "  is 
not  Nature  better  than  a  book?  Is  not  the  human  heart 
deeper  than  any  system  of  philosophy?  Is  not  life  replete 
with  more  instruction  than  past  observers  have  found  it 
possible  to  write  down  in  maxims?  Be  of  good  cheer. 
The  great  book  of  Time  is  still  spread  wide  open  before  us; 
and  if  we  read  it  aright,  it  will  be  to  us  a  volume  of  eter 
nal  truth." 

"  Oh,  my  books,  my  books!  my  precious  printed  books!" 
reiterated  the  forlorn  bookworm.  "  My  only  reality  was 
a  bound  volume,  and  now  they  will  not  leave  me  even  a 
shadowy  pamphlet." 

In  fact  the  last  remnant  of  the  literature  of  all  the  ages 
was  now  descending  upon  the  blazing  heap  in  the  shape  of 
a  cloud  of  pamphlets  from  the  press  of  the  New  World. 
These,  likewise,  were  consumed  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  leaving  the  earth,  for  the  first  time  since  the  days  of 
Cadmus,  free  from  the  plague  of  letters — an  enviable  field 
for  the  authors  of  the  next  generation. 

"  Well,  and  does  anything  remain  to  be  done?"  inquired 
I,  somewhat  anxiously.  "  Unless  we  set  fire  to  the  earth 
itself  and  then  leap  boldly  off  into  infinite  space,  I  know 
not  that  we  can  carry  reform  to  any  further  point." 

"  You  are  vastly  mistaken,  my  good  friend,"  said  the 
observer.  "  Believe  me,  the  fire  will  not  be  allowed  to 
settle  down  without  the  addition  of  fuel  that  will  startle 
many  persons  who  have  lent  a  willing  hand  thus  far." 

Nevertheless,  there  appeared  to  be  a  relaxation  of  effort 
for  a  little  time,  during  which  probably,  the  leaders  of  the 
movement  were  considering  what  should  be  done  next.  In 
the  interval  a  philosopher  threw  his  theory  into  the  flames 
— a  sacrifice  which,  by  those  who  knew  how  to  estimate  it, 


326  MOUSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

was  pronounced  the  most  remarkable  that  had  yet  been 
made.  The  combustion,  however,  was  by  now  means  bril 
liant.  Some  indefatigable  people,  scorning  to  take  a  mo 
ment's  ease,  now  employed  themselves  in  collecting  all  the 
withered  leaves  and  fallen  boughs  of  the  forest, -an.d  thereby 
recruited  the  bonfire  to  a  greater  height  than  ever.  But 
this  was  mere  by-play. 

"Here  comes  the  fresh  fuel  that  I  spoke  of,"  said  my 
companion. 

To  my  astonishment,  the  persons  who  now  advanced  into 
the  vacant  space  around  the  mountain-fire  bore  surplices 
and  other  priestly  garments,  miters,  crosiers  and  a  confu 
sion  of  popish  and  protestant  emblems  with  which  it  seemed 
their  purpose  to  consummate  the  great  Act  of  Faith. 
Crosses  from  the  spires  of  old  cathedrals  were  cast  upon 
the  heap  with  as  little  remorse  as  is  the  reverence  of  cent 
uries,  passing  in  long  array  beneath  the  lofty  towers,  had 
not  looked  up  to  them  as  the  holiest  of  symbols.  The  font 
in  which  infants  were  consecrated  to  God,  the  sacramental 
vessels  whence  Piety  received  the  hallowed  draught,  were 
given  to  the  same  destruction.  Perhaps  it  most  nearly 
touched  my  heart  to  see  among  these  devoted  relics  frag 
ments  of  the  humble  communion-tables  and  undecorated 
pulpits  which  I  recognized  as  having  been  torn  from  the 
meeting-houses  of  New  England.  Those  simple  edifices 
might  have  been  permitted  to  retain  all  of  sacred  embel 
lishments  that  their  puritan  founders  had  bestowed,  even 
though  the  mighty  structure  of  St.  Peter's  had  sent  its 
spoils  to  the  fire  of  this  terrible  sacrifice.  Yet  I  felt  that 
these  were  but  the  externals  of  religion,  and  might  most 
safely  be  relinquished  by  spirits  that  best  knew  their  deep 
significance. 

"All  is  well,"  said  I,  cheerfully.  "  The  wood-paths 
shall  be  the  aisles  of  our  cathedral;  the  firmament  itself 
shall  be  its  ceiling.  What  needs  an  earthly  roof  between 
the  Deity  and  his  worshipers?  Our  faith  can  well  afford 
to  lose  all  the  drapery  that  even  the  holiest  men  have 
thrown  around  it,  and  be  only  the  more  sublime  in  its 
simplicity." 

"True,"  said  my  companion.  "But  will  they  pause 
here?" 

The  doubt  implied  in  his  question  was  well  founded.  In 
the  general  destruction  of  books  already  described  a  holy 


EARTH'S  IIOLOCA  UST.  327 

volume  that  stood  apart  from  the  catalogue  of  human  litera 
ture,  and  yet  in  one  sense  was  at  its  head,  had  been  spared. 
But  the  Titan  of  innovation — angel  or  fiend,  double  in  his 
nature  and  capable  of  deeds  befitting  both  characters — at 
first  shaking  down  only  the  old  and  rotten  shapes  of  things, 
had  now,  as  it  appeared,  laid  his  terrible  hand  upon  the 
main  pillars  which  supported  the  whole  edifice  of  our  moral 
and  spiritual  state.  The  inhabitants  of  the  earth  had  grown 
too  enlightened  to  define  their  faith  within  a  form  of 
words  or  to  limit  the  spiritual  by  any  analogy  to  our  ma 
terial  existence.  Truths  which  the  heavens  trembled  at 
were  now  but  a  fable  of  the  world's  infancy.  Therefore, 
as  the  final  sacrifice  of  human  error,  what  else  remained  to 
be  thrown  upon  the  embers  of  that  awful  pile  except  the 
book  which,  though  a  celestial  revelation  to  past  ages,  was 
but  a  voice  from  a  lower  sphere,  as  regarded  the  present 
race  of  man?  It  was  done.  Upon  the  blazing  heap  of 
falsehood  and  worn-out  truth — things  that  the  earth  had 
never  needed  or  had  ceased  to  need  or  had  grown  childishly 
weary  of — fell  the  ponderous  church  bible,  the  great  old 
volume  that  had  lain  so  long  on  the  cushion  of  the  pulpit, 
and  whence  the  pastor's  solemn  voice  had  given  holy  utter 
ance  on  so  many  a  Sabbath-day.  There,  likewise,  fell  the 
the  family  bible  which  the  long-buried  patriarch  had  read 
to  his  children — in  prosperity  or  sorrow,  by  the  fireside, 
and  in  the  summer  shade  of  trees — and  had  bequeathed 
downward  as  the  heirloom  of  generations.  There  fell  the 
bosom  bible,  the  little  volume  that  had  been  the  soul's 
friend  of  some  sorely-tried  child  of  dust  who  thence  took 
courage  whether  his  trial  were  for  life  or  death,  stead 
fastly  confronting  both  in  the  strong  assurance  of  immor 
tality. 

All  these  were  flung  into  the  fierce  and  riotous  blaze,  and 
then  a  mighty  wind  came  roaring  across  the  plain  with  a 
desolate  howl,  as  if  it  were  the  angry  lamentations  of  the 
earth  for  the  loss  of  heaven's  sunshine,  and  it  shook  the 
gigantic  pyramid  of  flame  and  scattered  the  cinders  of  half- 
consumed  abominations  around  upon  the  spectators. 

"  This  is  terrible!"  said  I,  feeling  that  my  cheek  grew 
pale  and  seeing  a  like  change  in  the  visages  about  me. 

"  Be  of  good  courage  yet/'  answered  the  man  with  Avhorn 
I  had  so  often  spoken.  He  continued  to  gaze  steadily  at 
the  spectacle  with  a  singular  calmness,  as  if  it  concerned 


328  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

him  merely  as  an  observer.  "  Be  of  good  courage,  nor  yet 
exult  too  much;  for  there  is  far  less  both  of  good  and  evil 
in  the  effect  of  this  bonfire  than  the  world  might  be  will 
ing  to  believe." 

"How  can  that  be?"  exclaimed  I,  impatiently.  "  Has 
it  not  consumed  everything?  Has  it  not  swallowed  up  or 
melted  down  every  human  or  divine  appendage  of  our 
mortal  state  that  had  substance  enough  to  be  acted  on  by 
fire?  Will  there  be  anything  left  us  to-morrow  morning 
better  or  worse  than  a  heap  of  embers  and  ashes?" 

"Assuredly  there  will,"  said  my  grave  friend.  "Come 
hither  to-morrow  morning — or  whenever  the  combustible 
portion  of  the  pile  shall  be  quite  burned  out — and  you  will 
find  among  the  ashes  everything  really  valuable  that  you 
have  seen  cast  into  the  flames.  Trust  me,  the  world  of  to 
morrow  will  again  enrich  itself  with  the  gold  and  diamonds 
which  have  been  cast  off  by  the  world  of  to-day.  Not  a 
truth  is  destroyed  or  buried  so  deep  among  the  ashes  but 
it  will  be  raked  up  at  last." 

This  was  a  strange  assurance,  yet  I  felt  inclined  to  credit 
it — the  more  especially  as  I  beheld  among  the  wallowing 
flames  a  copy  of  the  holy  scriptures  the  pages  of  which, 
instead  of  being  blackened  into  tinder,  only  assumed  a 
more  dazzling  whiteness  as  the  finger-marks  of  human  im 
perfection  were  purified  away.  Certain  marginal  notes 
and  commentaries,  it  is  true,  yielded  to  the  intensity  of  the 
fiery  test,  but  without  detriment  to  the  smallest  syllable 
that  had  flamed  from  the  pen  of  inspiration. 

"  Yes,  there  is  the  proof  of  what  you  say,"  answered  I, 
turning  to  the  observer.  "But  if  only  that  is  evil  can  feel 
the  action  of  the  fire,  then,  surely,  the  conflagration  has 
been  of  inestimable  utility.  Yet,  if  I  understand  aright, 
you  intimate  a  doubt  whether  the  world's  expectation  of 
benefit  would  be  realized  by  it." 

"  Listen  to  the  talk  of  these  worthies,"  said  he,  pointing 
to  a  group  in  front  of  the  blazing  pile.  "  Possibly  they 
may  teach  you  something  useful  without  intending  it." 

The  person  whom  he  indicated  consisted  of  that  brutal 
and  most  earthly  figure  who  stood  forth  so  furiously  in 
defense  of  the  gallows — the  hangman,  in  short — together 
with  the  last  thief  and  the  last  murderer,  all  three  of  whom 
wc-re  clustered  around  the  last  toper.  The  latter  was  liber 
ally  passing  the  brandy-bottle  which  he  had  rescused  from 


EARTH  '8  EOLOCA  VST.  329 

the  general  destruction  of  wines  and  spirits.  This  little 
convival  party  seemed  at  the  lowest  pitch  of  despondency, 
as  considering  that  the  purified  world  must  needs  be  utterly 
unlike  the  sphere  that  they  had  hitherto  known,  and  there 
fore  but  a  strange  and  desolate  abode  for  gentlemen  of  their 
kidney. 

"  The  best  counsel  for  all  of  us  is,"  remarked  the  hang 
man,  "  that  as  soon  as  we  have  finished  the  last  drop  of 
liquor  I  help  you,  my  three  friends,  to  a  comfortable  end 
upon  the  nearest  tree,  and  then  hang  myself  on  the  same 
bough.  This  is  no  world  for  us  any  longer." 

"Poh,  poh,  my  good  fellows!"  said  a  dark-complexioned 
personage  who  now  joined  the  group.  His  complexion  was 
indeed  fearfully  dark,  and  his  eyes  glowed  with  a  redder 
light  than  that  of  the  bonfire.  "  Be  not  so  cast  down,  my 
dear  friends;  you  shall  see  good  days  yet.  There  is  one 
thing  that  these  wiseacres  have  forgotten  to  throw  into  the 
fire,  and  without  which  all  the  rest  of  the  conflagration  is 
just  nothing  at  all — yes,  though  they  had  burned  the  earth 
itself  to  a  cinder. 

"And  what  may  that  be?"  eagerly  demanded  the  last 
murderer. 

"  What  but  the  human  heart  itself?"  said  the  dark- 
visaged  stranger,  with  a  portentous  grin.  "  And,  unless 
they  hit  upon  some  method  of  purifying  that  foul  cavern, 
forth  from  it  will  reissue  all  the  shapes  of  wrong  and  misery 
— the  same  old  shapes,  or  worse  ones — which  they  have 
taken  such  a  vast  deal  of  trouble  to  consume  to  ashes.  I  have 
stood  by  this  livelong  night  and  laughed  in  my  sleeve  at 
the  whole  business.  Oh,  take  my  word  for  it,  it  will  be  the 
old  world  yet." 

This  brief  conversation  supplied  me  with  a  theme  for 
lengthened  thought.  How  sad  a  true — if  truth  it  were — 
that  man's  age-long  endeavor  for  perfection  had  served 
only  to  render  him  the  mockery  of  the  Evil  Principle  from 
the  fatal  circumstance  of  an  error  at  the  very  root  of  the 
matter!  The  heart — the  heart!  There  was  the  little,  yet 
boundless,  sphere  wherein  existed  the  original  wrong  of 
which  the  crime  and  misery  of  this  outward  world  were 
merely  types.  Purify  that  inward  sphere,  and  the  many 
shapes  of  evil  that  haunt  the  outward,  and  which  now  seem 
almost  our  only  realities,  will  turn  to  shadowy  phantoms 
and  vanish  of  their  own  accord.  But  if  we  go  no  deeper 


330  MOSSfiS  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

than  the  intellect,  and  strive  with  merely  that  feeble  instru 
ment  to  discern  and  rectify  what  is  wrong,  our  whole  ac 
complishment  will  be  a  dream  so  unsubstantial  that  it  mat 
ters  little  whether  the  bonfire,  which  I  have  so  faithfully 
described  were  what  we  choose  to  call  a  real  event  and  a 
flame  that  would  scorch  the  finger,  or  only  a  phosphoric 
radiance  and  a  parable  of  my  own  brain. 


SKETCHES  FROM  MEMOR  Y.  331 


SKETCHES  FROM  MEMORY.* 

BY  A  PEDESTRIAN. 


We  are  so  fortunate  as  to  have  in  our  possession  the  portfolio  of  a 
friend  who  traveled  on  foot  in  search  of  the  picturesque  over  New 
England  and  New  York.  It  contains  many  loose  scraps  and  random 
sketches,  which  appear  to  have  been  thrown  off  at  different  intervals, 
as  the  scenes  once  observed  were  recalled  to  the  mind  of  the  writer 
by  recent  events  or  associations,  lie  kept  no  journal  nor  set  down 
any  notes  during1  his  tour;  but  his  recollection  seems  to  have  been 
faithful,  and  his  powers  of  description  as  fresh  and  effective  as  if 
they  had  been  tasked  on  the  very  spot  which  he  describes.  Some  of 
his  quiet  delineation  deserve  rather  to  be  called  pictures  than 
sketches,  so  lively  are  the  colors  shed  over  them.  The  first  which 
we  select  is  a  reminiscence  of  a  day  and  night  spent  among  the 
White  Mountains,  and  will  revive  agreeable  thoughts  in  the  minds 
of  those  tourists  who  have  but  just  returned  from  a  visit  to  their 
sublime  scenery. 

THE   NOTCH    OF   THE   WHITE    MOUNTAINS. 

IT  WAS  now  the  middle  of  September.  We  had  come 
since  sunrise  from  Bartlett,  passing  up  through  the  valley 
of  the  Saco,  which  extends  between  mountainous  walls, 
sometimes  with  a  steep  ascent,  but  often  as  level  as  a  church- 
aisle.  All  that  clay  and  two  preceding  ones  we  had  been 
loitering  toward  the  heart  of  the  AVhite  Mountains — those 
old  crystal  hills  whose  mysterious  brilliancy  had  gleamed 
upon  our  distant  wanderings  before  we  thought  of  visiting 
them.  Height  after  height  had  risen  and  towered  one 
above  another,  till  the  clouds  began  to  hang  below  the 
peaks.  Down  their  slopes  were  the  red  pathways  of  the 
slides,  those  avalanches  of  earth,  stones  and  trees  which  de- 

*  The  following  sketches  appeared  originally  in  the  New  England 
Magazine,  and  are  here  for  the  first  time  reprinted  complete. 


332  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

scend  into  the  hollows,  leaving  vestiges  of  their  track  hardly 
to  be  effaced  by  the  vegetation  of  ages.  We  had  mountains 
behind  us  and  mountains  on  each  side,  and  a  group  of 
mightier  ones  ahead.  Still  our  road  went  up  along  the 
Saco,  right  toward  the  center  of  that  group,  as  if  to  climb 
above  the  clouds  in  its  passage  to  the  farther  region. 

In  old  times  the  settlers  used  to  be  astounded  by  the  in 
roads  of  the  Northern  Indians,  coming  down  upon  them 
from  this  mountain-rampart  through  some  defile  known 
only  to  themselves.  It  is  indeed  a  wondrous  path.  A  de 
mon,  it  might  be  fancied,  or  one  of  the  Titans  was  traveling 
up  the  valley,  elbowing  the  heights  carelessly  aside  as  he 
passed,  till  at  length  a  great  mountain  took  its  stand 
directly  across  his  intended  road.  He  tarries  not  for  such 
an  obstacle,  but,  rending  it  as  under  a  thousand  feet  from 
peak  to  base,  discloses  its  treasures  of  hidden  minerals,  its 
sunless  waters,  all  the  secrets  of  the  mountain's  inmost 
heart,  with  a  mighty  fracture  of  rugged  precipices  on  each 
side.  This  is  the  Notch  of  the  White  Hills.  Shame  on 
me  that  I  have  attempted  to  describe  it  by  so  mean  an 
image,  feeling,  as  I  do,  that  it  is  one  of  those  symbolic 
scenes  which  lead  the  mind  to  the  sentiment,  though  not 
to  the  conception,  of  Omnipotence. 

We  had  now  reached  a  narrow  passage  which  showed  al 
most  the  appearance  of  having  been  cut  by  human  strength 
and  artifice  in  the  solid  rock.  There  was  a  wall  of  granite 
on  each  side,  high  and  precipitous,  especially  on  our  right, 
and  so  smooth  that  a  few  evergreens  could  hardly  find  foot 
hold  enough  to  grow  there.  This  is  the  entrance,  or,  in  the 
direction  we  were  going,  the  extremity,  of  the  romantic  de 
file  of  the  Notch.  Before  emerging  from  it  the  rattling  of 
wheels  approached  behind  us,  and  a  stage-coach  rumbled 
out  of  the  mountain,  with  seats  on  top  and  trunks  be 
hind,  and  a  smart  driver  in  a  drab  great -coat  touching  the 
wheel-horses  with  the  whip-stock  and  reigning  in  the 
leaders.  To  my  mind  there  was  a  sort  of  poetry  in  such 
an  incident  hardly  inferior  to  what  would  have  accom- 

Eanied  the  painted  array  of  an  Indian  war-party  gliding 
srth  from  the  same  wild  chasm.     All  the  passengers,  ex 
cept  a  very  fat  lady  on  the  back  seat,  had  alighted.     One 
was  a  mineralogist — a  scientific,  green-spectacled  figure  in 
black,  bearing  a  heavy  hammer,  with  which   he  .did  great 


SKETCHES  FROM  MEMOR  Y.  333 

damage  to  the  precipices,  and  put  the  fragments  in  his 
pocket.  Another  was  a  well-dressed  young  man  who  car 
ried  an  opera-glass  set  in  gold  and  seemed  to  be  making  a 
quotation  from  some  of  Byron's  rhapsodies  on  mountain- 
scenery.  There  was  also  a  trader  returning  from  Portland 
to  the  upper  part  of  Vermont,  and  a  fair  young  girl  with  a 
very  faint  bloom,  like  one  of  those  pale  and  delicate  flowers 
which  sometimes  occur  among  Alpine  cliffs. 

They  disappeared,  and  we  followed  them,  passing  through 
a  deep  pine-forest  which  for  some  miles  allowed  us  to  see 
nothing  but  its  own  dismal  shade.  Toward  nightfall  we 
reached  a  level  amphitheater  surrounded  by  a  great  ram 
part  of  hills,  which  shut  out  the  sunshine  long  before  it 
left  the  external  world.  It  was  here  that  we  obtained  our 
first  view,  except  at  a  distance,  of  the  principal  group  of 
mountains.  They  are  majestic,  and  even  awful  when  con 
templated  in  a  proper  mood,  yet  by  their  breadth  of  base 
and  the  long  ridges  which  support  them  give  the  idea  of 
immense  bulk  rather  than  of  towering  height.  Mount 
Washington,  indeed,  looked  near  to  heaven  ;  it  was  white 
with  snow  a  mile  downward,  and  had  caught  the  only 
cloud  that  was  sailing  through  the  atmosphere  to  veil  its 
head.  Let  us  forget  the  other  names  of  American  states 
men  that  have  been  stamped  upon  these  hills,  but  still  call 
the  loftiest  "  Washington."  Mountains  are  earth's  unde- 
caying  monuments.  They  must  stand  while  she  endures, 
and  never  should  be  consecrated  to  the  mere  great  men  of 
their  own  age  and  country,  but  to  the  mighty  ones  alone 
whose  glory  is  universal  and  whom  all  time  will  render 
illustrious. 

The  air — not  often  sultry  in  this  elevated  region,  nearly 
2,000  feet  above  the  sea — was  now  sharp  and  cold,  like 
that  of  a  clear  November  evening  in  the  lowlands.  By 
morning,  probably,  there  would  be  a  frost,  if  not  a 
snowfall,  on  the  grass  and  rye,  and  an  icy  surface  over  the 
standing  water.  I  was  glad  to  perceive  a  prospect  of  com 
fortable  quarters  in  a  house  which  we  were  approaching, 
and  of  pleasant  company  in  the  guests  who  were  assembled 
at  the  door. 

OUR   EVENING-PARTY   AMONG   THE   MOUNTAINS. 

We  stood  in  front  of  a  good  substantial  farmhouse  of  old 
date,  in  that  wild  country.  A  sign  over  the  door  denoted 


334  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

it  to  be  the  White  Mountain  post-office — and  establishment 
which  distributes  letters  and  newspapers  to  perhaps  a  score 
of  persons,  comprising  the  population  of  two  or  three  town 
ships  among  the  hills.  The  broad  and  weighty  antlers  of 
a  deer — "  a  stag  of  ten" — were  fastened  at  the  corner  of 
the  house  ;  a  fox's  bushy  tail  was  nailed  beneath  them,  and 
a  huge  black  paw  lay  on  the  ground,  newly  severed  and 
still  bleeding,  the  trophy  of  a  bear-hunt.  Among  several 
persons  collected  about  the  doorsteps,  the  most  remarkable 
was  a  sturdy  mountaineer  of  six  feet  two  and  correspond 
ing  bulk,  with  a  heavy  set  of  features  such  as  might  be 
molded  on  his  own  blacksmith's  anvil,  but  yet  indicative 
of  mother-wit  and  rough  humor.  As  we  appeared  he  up 
lifted  a  tin  trumpet  four  or  five  feet  long  and  blew  a  tre 
mendous  blast,  either  in  honor  of  our  arrival  or  to  awaken 
an  echo  from  the  opposite  hill. 

Ethan  Crawford's  guests  were  of  such  a  motley  descrip 
tion  as  to  form  quite  a  picturesque  group  seldom  seen  to 
gether  except  at  some  place  like  this,  at  once  the  pleasure- 
house  of  fashionable  tourists  and  the  homely  inn  of  country 
travelers.  Among  the  company  at  the  door  were  the  min 
eralogist  and  the  owner  of  the  gold  opera-glass,  whom  we 
had  encountered  in  the  Notch,  two  Georgian  gentlemen 
who  had  chilled  their  Southern  blood  that  morning  on  the 
top  of  Mount  Washington,  a  physician  and  his  wife  from 
Con  way,  a  trader  of  Burlington  and  an  old  squire  of  the 
Green  Mountains  and  two  young  married  couples  all  the 
way  from  Massachusetts,  on  their  matrimonial  jaunt.  Be 
sides  these  strangers,  the  rugged  county  of  Coos,  in 
which  we  were,  was  represented  by  half  a  dozen  wood 
cutters,  who  had  slain  a  bear  in  the  forest  and  smitten  off 
his  paw. 

I  had  joined  the  party  and  had  a  moment's  leisure  to 
examine  them  before  the  echo  of  Ethan's  blast  returned 
from  the  hill.  Not  one  but  many  echoes  had  caught  up 
the  harsh  and  tuneless  sound,  untwisted  its  complicated 
threads,  and  found  a  thousand  aerial  harmonies  in  one 
stern  trumpet-tone.  It  was  a  distinct  yet  distant  and 
dreamlike  symphony  of  melodious  instruments,  as  if  an 
airy  band  had  been  hidden  on  the  hillside  and  made  faint 
music  at  the  summons.  No  subsequent  trial  produced  so 
clear,  delicate  and  spiritual  a  concert  as  the  first.  A  field- 
piece  was  then  discharged  from  the  top  of  a  neighboring 


SKETCHES  FROM  MEMOR  F.  335 

hill,  and  gave  birth  to  one  long  reverberation  which  ran 
round  the  circle  of  mountains  in  an  unbroken  chain 
of  sound  and  rolled  away  without  a  separate  echo.  After 
these  experiments,  the  cold  atmosphere  drove  us  all  into 
the  house  with  the  keenest  appetites  for  supper. 

It  did  one's  heart  good  to  see  the  great  tires  that  were 
kindled  in  the  parlor  and  bar-room,,  especially  the  latter, 
where  the  fire-place  was  built  of  rough  stone  and  might 
have  contained  the  trunk  of  an  old  tree  for  a  back-log. 
A  man  keeps  a  comfortable  hearth  when  his  own  forest  is 
at  his  very  door.  In  the  parlor,  when  the  evening  was 
fairly  set  in,  we  held  our  hands  before  our  eyes  to  shield 
them  from  the  ruddy  glow  and  began  a  pleasant  variety  of 
conversation.  The  mineralogist  and  the  physician  talked 
about  the  invigorating  qualities  of  the  mountain-air  and 
its  excellent  effect  on  Ethan  Crawford's  father,  an  old  man 
of  75  with  the  unbroken  frame  of  middle  life.  The  two 
brides  and  the  doctor's  wife  held  a  whispered  discussion, 
which,  by  their  frequent  tittering  and  a  blush  or  two, 
seemed  to  have  reference  to  the  trials  or  enjoyments  of  the 
matrimonial  state.  The  bridegrooms  sat  together  in  a 
corner,  rigidly  silent,  like  quakers  whom  the  spirit  moveth 
not,  being  still  in  the  odd  predicament  of  blushing  bash- 
fulness  toward  their  own  wives.  The  Green  ^Mountain 
squire  chose  me  for  his  companion  and  described  the  diffi 
culties  he  had  met  with  half  a  century  ago  in  traveling 
from  the  Connecticut  river  through  the  A'otch  to  Conway, 
now  a  single  day's  journey,  though  it  had  cost  him  eight 
een.  The  Georgians  held  the  album  between  them  and 
favored  us  with  a  few  specimens  of  its  contents  which  they 
considered  ridiculous  enough  to  bu  worth  hearing.  One 
extract  met  with  deserved  applause.  It  was  a  '•'  Sonnet 
to  the  Snow  on  Mount  Washington,"  and  had  been  con 
tributed  that  very  afternoon,  bearing  a  signature  of  great 
distinction  in  magazines  and  annuals.  The  lines  were 
elegant  and  full  of  fancy,  but  too  remote  from  familiar 
sentiment  and  cold  as  their  subject,  resembling  those 
curious  specimens  of  crystalized  vapor  which  I  observed 
next  day  on  the  mountain-top.  The  poet  was  understood 
to  be  the  young  gentleman  of  the  gold  opera-glass,  who 
heard  our  laudatory  remarks  with  the  composure  of  a  vet 
eran. 

Such  was  our  party  and  such  their  ways  of  amusement. 


336  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

But  on  a  winter  evening  another  set  of  guests  assembled 
at  the  hearth  where  these  summer- travelers  were  now  sit 
ting.  I  once  had  it  in  contemplation  to  spend  a  mouth 
hereabouts  in  sleighing-time  for  the  sake  of  studying  the 
yoemen  of  New  England,  who  then  elbow  each  other 
through  the  Notch  by  hundreds  on  their  way  to  Portland. 
There  could  be  no  better  school  for  such  a  place  than 
Ethan  Crawford's  inn.  Let  the  student  go  thither  in  De 
cember,  sit  down  with  the  teamsters  at  their  meals,  share 
their  evening  merriment  and  repose  with  them  at  night, 
when  every  bed  has  its  three  occupants  and  parlor,  bar 
room  and  kitchen  are  strewn  with  slumberers  around  the 
fire.  Then  let  him  rise  before  daylight,  button  his  great 
coat,  muffle  up  his  ears  and  stride  with  the  departing  cara 
van  a  mile  or  two  to  see  how  sturdily  they  make  head 
against  the  blast.  A  treasure  of  characteristic  traits  will 
repay  all  inconveniences,  even  should  a  frozen  nose  be  of 
the  number. 

The  conversation  of  our  party  soon  became  more  ani 
mated  and  sincere  and  we  recounted  some  traditions  of  the 
Indians,  who  believed  that  the  father  and  mother  of  their 
race  were  saved  from  a  deluge  by  ascending  the  peak  of 
Mount  Washington.  The  children  of  that  pair  have  been 
overwhelmed  and  found  no  such  refuge.  In  the  mythology 
of  the  savage  these  mountains  were  afterward  considered 
sacred  and  inaccessible,  full  of  unearthly  wonders  illumin 
ated  at  lofty  heights  by  the  blaze  of  precious  stones  and 
inhabited  by  deities  who  sometimes  shrouded  themselves  in 
the  snow-storm  and  came  down  on  the  lower  world. 
There  are  few  legends  more  poetical  than  that  of  the 
"  Great  Carbuncle"  of  the  AVhite  Mountains.  The  belief 
was  communicated  to  the  English  settlers  and  is  hardly  yet 
extinct,  that  a  gem  of  such  immense  size  as  to  be  seen  shin 
ing  miles  away  hangs  from  a  rock  over  a  clear,  deep  lake 
high  up  among  the  hills.  They  who  had  once  beheld  its 
splendor  were  enthralled  with  an  unutterable  yearning  to 
possess  it.  But  a  spirit  guarded  that  inestimable  jewel 
and  bewildered  the  adventurer  with  a  dark  mist  from  the 
enchanted  lake.  Thus  life  was  worn  away  in  the  vain 
search  for  an  unearthly  treasure,  till  at  length  the  deluded 
one  went  up  the  mountain,  still  sanguine  as  in  youth,  but 
returned  no  more.  On  this  theme,  methinks,  I  could 
frame  a  tale  with  a  deep  moral. 


SKETCHES  FROM  MEMORY.  337 

The  hearts  of  the  palefaces  would  not  thrill  to  these  su 
perstitions  of  the  reel  men  though  we  spoke  of  them  in  the 
center  of  the  haunted  region.  The  habits  and  sentiments 
of  that  departed  people  were  too  distinct  from  those  of  their 
successors  to  find  much  real  sympathy.  It  has  often  been 
a  matter  of  regret  to  me  that  I  was  shut  out  from  the  most 
peculiar  field  of  American  fiction  by  an  inability  to  see  any 
romance  or  poetry  or  grandeur  or  beauty  in  the  Indian 
character,  at  least,  till  such  traits  were  pointed  out  by 
others.  I  do  abhor  an  Indian  story,  yet  no  writer  can  be 
more  secure  of  a  permanent  place  in  our  literature  than 
the  biographer  of  the  Indian  chiefs.  His  subject,  as  re 
ferring  to  tribes  which  have  mostly  vanished  from  the 
earth,  gives  him  a  right  to  be  placed  on  a  classic  shelf 
apart  from  the  merits  which  will  sustain  him  there. 

I  made  inquiries  whether  in  his  researches  about  these 
parts  our  mineralogist  had  found  the  the  three  "silver 
hills/'  which  an  Indian  sachem  sold  to  an  Englishman 
nearly  200 years  ago  and  the  treasure  of  which  the  posterity 
of  the  purchaser  has  been  looking  for  ever  since.  Hut  the 
man  of  science  had  ransacked  every  hill  along  the  Sacco 
and  knew  nothing  of  these  prodigious  piles  of  wealth. 

By  this  time,  as  usual  with  men  on  the  eve  of  great  ad 
venture,  we  had  prolonged  our  session  late  into  the  night, 
considering  how  early  we  were  to  set  out  on  our  six  miles' 
ride  to  the  foot  of  Mount  AVashington.  There  was  now  a 
general  breaking  up.  I  scrutinized  the  faces  of  the  two 
bridegrooms  and  saw  but  little  probability  of  their  leaving 
the  bosom  of  earthly  bliss  in  the  first  week  of  the  honey 
moon,  and  at  the  frosty  hour  of  three,  to  climb  above  the 
clouds.  Xor,  when  I  felt  how  sharp  the  wind  was  as  it 
rushed  through  a  broken  pane  and  eddied  between  the 
chinks  of  my  unplastered  chamber,  did  I  anticipate  much 
alacrity  on  my  own  part,  though  we  were  to  seek  for  the 
"Great  Carbuncle." 

THE     CAXAL-BOAT. 

I  was  inclined  to  be  poetical  about  the  Grand  Canal. 
In  my  imagination  DeWitt  Clinton  was  an  enchanter  who 
had  waved  his  magic  wand  from  the  Hudson  to  Lake  Erie 
and  united  them  by  a  watery  highway  crowded  with  the 
commerce  of  two  worlds  till  then  inaccessible  to  each 
other.  This  simple  and  mighty  conception  had  conferred 


338  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

inestimable  value  on  spots  which  nature  seemed  to  have 
thrown  carelessly  into  the  great  body  of  the  earth  without 
foreseeing  that  they  could  ever  attain  importance.  I  pict 
ured  the  surprise  of  the  sleepy  Dutchmen  when  the  new 
river  first  glittered  by  their  doors,  bringing  them  hard 
casli  or  foreign  commodities  in  exchange  for  their  hith 
erto  unmarketable  produce.  Surely  the  water  of  this 
canal  must  be  the  most  fertilizing  of  all  fluids,  for  it  causes 
towns  with  their  masses  of  brick  and  stone,  their  churches 
and  theaters,  their  business  and  hubbub,  their  luxury 
and  refinement,  their  gay  dames  and  polished  citizens  to 
spring  up  till  in  time  the  wondrous  stream  may  flow  be 
tween  two  continuous  lines  of  buildings,  through  one 
thronged  street  from  Buffalo  to  Albany.  I  embarked 
about  thirty  miles  below  Utica,  determining  to  voyage 
along  the  whole  extent  of  the  canal  at  least  twice  in  the 
course  of  the  summer. 

Behold  us,  then,  fairly  afloat  with  three  horses  harnessed 
to  our  vessel  like  the  steeds  of  Neptune  to  a  huge  scallop- 
shell  in  mythological  pictures.  Bound  to  a  distant  port, 
we  bad  neither  chart  nor  compass,  nor  cared  about  the 
wind,  nor  felt  the  heaving  of  a  billow  nor  dreaded  ship 
wreck,  however  fierce  the  tempest,  in  our  adventurous 
navigation  of  an  interminable  mud-puddle  ;  for  a  mud- 
puddle  it  seemed,  and  as  dark  and  turbid  as  if  every  ken 
nel  in  the  land  paid  contribution  to  it.  With  an  imper 
ceptible  current  it  holds  its  drowsy  way  through  all  the 
dismal  swamps  and  unimpressive  scenery  that  could  be 
found  between  the  great  lakes  and  the  seacoast.  Yet 
there  is  variety  enough,  both  on  the  surface  of  the  canal 
and  along  its  banks,  to  amuse  the  traveler  if  an  overpower 
ing  tedium  did  not  deaden  his  perceptions. 

Sometimes  we  met  a  black  and  rusty  -  looking  vessel 
laden  with  lumber,  salt  from  Syracuse  or  Genesee  flour, 
and  shaped  at  both  ends  like  a  square-toed  boot  as  if  it 
had  two  sterns  and  were  fated  always  to  advance  backward. 
On  its  deck  would  be  a  square  hut  and  a  woman  seen 
through  the  window  at  her  household  work  with  a  little 
tribe  of  children  who  perhaps  had  been  born  in  this  strange 
dwelling  and  knew  no  other  home.  Thus,  while  the  hus 
band  smoked  his  pipe  at  the  helm  and  the  eldest  son  rode 
one  of  the  horses,  on  went  the  family,  traveling  hundreds 
of  miles  in  their  own  house  and  carrying  their  fireside  with 


SKETCHES  FROM  MEMORY.  330 

them.  The  most  frequent  species  of  craft  were  the  "line- 
boats,"  which  had  a  cabin  at  each  end  and  a  great  bulk  of 
barrels,  bales  and  boxes  in  the  midst,,  or  light  packets  like 
our  own,  decked  all  over,  with  a  row  of  curtained  windows 
from  stem  to  stern  and  a  drowsy  face  at  every  one.  Once 
we  encountered  a  boat  of  rude  construction,  painted  all  in 
gloomy  black  and  manned  by  three  Indians,  who  gazed  at 
us  in  silence  and  with  a  singular  fixedness  of  eye.  Per 
haps  these  three  alone  among  the  ancient  possessors  of  the 
land  had  attempted  to  derive  benefit  from  the  white  man's 
mighty  projects  and  float  along  the  current  of  his  enter 
prise.  Not  long  after,  in  the  midst  of  a  swamp  and  be 
neath  a  clouded  sky,  we  overtook  a  vessel  that  seemed  full 
of  mirth  and  sunshine.  It  contained  a  little  colony  of 
Swiss  on  their  way  to  Michigan,  clad  in  garments  of 
strange  fashion  and  gay  colors,  scarlet,  yellow  and  bright 
blue,  singing,  laughing  and  making  merry  in  odd  tones 
and  a  babble  of  outlandish  words.  One  pretty  damsel 
with  a  beautiful  pair  of  naked  white  arms  addressed  a 
mirthful  remark  to  me;  she  spoke  in  her  native  tongue 
and  I  retorted  in  good  English,  both  of  us  laughing  heart 
ily  at  each  other's  unintelligible  wit.  I  cannot  describe 
how  pleasantly  this  incident  affected  me.  These  honest 
Swiss  were  an  itinerant  community  of  jest  and  fun  jour 
neying  through  a  gloomy  land  and  among  a  dull  race  of 
money-getting  drudges,  meeting  none  to  understand  their 
mirth  and  only  one  to  sympathize  with  it,  yet  still  retain 
ing  the  happy  lightness  of  their  own  spirit. 

Had  1  been  on  my  feet  at  the  time,  instead  of  sailing 
slowly  along  in  a  dirty  canal-boat,  1  should  often  have 
paused  to  contemplate  the  di versified  panorama  along  the 
banks  of  the  canal.  Sometimes  the  scene  was  a  forest, 
dark,  dense  and  impervious,  breaking  a\vay  occasionally 
and  receding  from  a  lonely  tract  covered  with  dismal  black 
stumps,  where  on  the  verge  of  the  canal  might  be  seen  a 
log  cottage  and  a  sallow-faced  woman  at  the  window.  Lean 
and  aguish  she  looked,  like  poverty  personified,  half 
clothed,  half  fed  and  dwelling  in  a  desert  while  a  tide  of 
wealth  was  sweeping  by  her  door.  Two  or  three  miles  far 
ther  would  bring  us  to  a  lock  where  the  slight  impediment 
to  navigation  had  created  a  little  mart  of  trade.  Here 
would  be  found  commodities  of  all  sorts,  enumerated  in 
yellow  letters  on.  the  window-shutters  of  a  small  grocery- 


340  J/assv^S'  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

store,  the  owner  of  which  had  set  his  soul  to  the  gathering 
of  coppers  and  small  change,  buying  and  selling  through 
the  week  and  counting  his  gains  on  the  blessed  Sabbath. 
The  next  scene  might  be  the  dwelling-houses  and  stores  of 
a  thriving  village,  built  of  wood  or  small  gray  stones,  a 
church-spire  rising  in  the  midst,  and  generally  two  taverns 
bearing  over  their  piazzas  the  pompous  title  of  "Hotel," 
"Exchange,"  "Tontine"  or  "Coffee-house."  Passing 
on,  we  glide  now  into  the  unquiet  heart  of  an  inland  city 
— of  Utica,  for  instance — and  find  ourselves  amid  piles  of 
brick,  crowded  docks  and  quays,  rich  warehouses  and  a 
busy  population.  We  feel  the  eager  and  hurrying  spirit  of 
the  place  like  a  stream  and  eddy  whirling  us  along  with  it. 
Through  the  thickest  of  the  tumult  goes  the  canal,  flowing 
between  lofty  rows  of  buildings  and  arched  bridges  of 
hewn  stone.  ~  Onward,  also,  go  we,  till  the  hum  and  bustle 
of  struggling  enterprise  die  away  behind  us  and  we  are 
threading  an  avenue  of  the  ancient  woods  again. 

This  sounds  not  amiss  in  description,  but  was  so  tiresome 
in  reality  that  we  were  driven  to  the  most  childish  expe 
dients  for  amusement.  An  English  traveler  paraded  the 
deck  with  a  rifle  in  his  walking-stick,  and  waged  war  on 
squirrels  and  woodpeckers,  sometimes  sending  an  unsuccess 
ful  bullet  among  flocks  of  tame  ducks  and  geese  which 
abound  in  the  dirty  water  of  the  canal.  I  also  pelted  these 
foolish  birds  with  apples,  and  smiled  at  the  ridiculous  earn 
estness  of  their  scrambles  for  the  prize,  while  the  apple 
bobbed  about  like  a  thing  of  life.  Several  little  accidents 
afforded  us  good-natured  diversion.  At  the  moment  of 
changing  horses  the  tow-rope  caught  a  Massachusetts  farmer 
by  the  leg  and  threw  him  down  in  a  very  indescribable 
posture,  leaving  a  purple  mark  around  his  sturdy  limb.  A 
new  passenger  fell  flat  on  his  back  in  attempting  to  step 
on  deck  as  the  boat  emerged  from  under  a  bridge.  An 
other — in  his  Sunday  clothes,  as  good  luck  would  have  it — 
being  told  to  leap  aboard  from  the  bank,  forthwith  plunged 
up  to  his  third  waistcoat-button  in  the  canal,  and  was 
fished  out  in  a  very  pitiable  plight  not  at  all  amended  by 
our  three  rounds  of  applause.  Anon  a  Virginia  school 
master  too  intent  on  a  pocket  "  Virgil  "  to  heed  the  helms 
man's  warning — "Bridge!  bridge!" — was  saluted  by  the 
said  bridge  on  his  knowledge-box.  I  had  prostrated  my- 
like  a  pagan  before  hjs  jc]plj  but  heard  \>})$  dull  leaden, 


SKETCHES  FROM  MEMOR  Y.  341 

sound  of  the  contact,  and  fully  expected  to  see  the  treasures 
of  the  poor  man's  cranium  scattered  about  the  deck. 
However,  as  there  was  no  harm  done  except  a  large  bump 
on  the  head,  and  probably  a  corresponding  dent  in  the 
bridge,  the  rest  of  us  exchanged  glances  and  laughed 
quietly.  Oh,  how  pitiless  are  idle  people! 

The  table  being  now  lengthened  through  the  cabin  and 
spread  for  supper,  the  next  twenty  minutes  were  the  pleas- 
antest  1  had  spent  on  the  canal — the  same  space  at  dinner 
excepted.  At  the  close  of  the  meal  it  had  become  dusky 
enough  for  lamplight.  The  min  puttered  unceasingly  on 
the  deck  and  sometimes  came  with  a  sullen  rush  against  the 
windows,  driven  by  the  wind  as  it  stirred  through  an  open 
ing  of  the  forest.  The  intolerable  dullness  of  the  scene 
engendered  an  evil  spirit  in  me.  Perceiving  that  the 
Englishman  was  taking  notes  in  a  memorandum-book, 
with  occasional  glances  round  the  cabin,  I  presumed  that 
we  were  all  to  figure  in  a  future  volume  of  travels,  and 
amused  my  ill-humor  by  falling  into  the  probable  vein  of 
his  remarks.  He  would  hold  up  an  imaginary  mirror, 
wherein  our  reflected  faces  would  appear,  ugly  and  ridicu 
lous,  yet  still  retain  an  undeniable  likeness  to  the  originals. 
Then,  with  more  sweeping  malice,  he  would  make  these 
caricatures  the  representatives  of  great  classes  of  my 
countrymen. 

He  glanced  at  the  Virginia  schoolmaster,  a  yankee  by 
birth,  who,  to  recreate  himself,  was  examining  a  freshman 
from  Schenectady  College  in  the  conjugation  of  a  Greek 
verb.  Him  the  Englishman  would  portray  as  the  scholar 
of  America,  and  compare  his  erudition  to  a  schoolboy's 
Latin  theme  made  up  of  scraps  ill  selected  and  worse  put 
together.  Xext  the  tourist  looked  at  the  Massachusetts 
farmer,  who  was  delivering  a  dogmatic  harangue  on  the 
iniquity  of  Sunday  mails.  Here  was  the  far-famed  yeoman 
of  New  England.  His  religion,  writes  the  Englishman,  is 
gloom  on  the  Sabbath,  long  prayers  every  morning  and 
eventide  and  illiberality  at  all  times;  his  boasted  informa 
tion  is  merely  an  abstract  and  compound  of  newspaper 
paragraphs.  Congress  debates,  caucus  harangues  and  the 
argument  and  judge's  charge  in  his  own  lawsuits.  The 
book-monger  cast  his  eye  at  a  Detroit  merchant  and  began 
scribbling  faster  than  ever.  In  this  sharp-eyed  man — this 
lean  man  of  wrinkled  brow— we  see  daring  enterprise  and 


342  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

close-fisted  avarice  combined.  Here  is  the  worshiper  of 
Mammon  at  noonday;  here  is  the  three-times  bankrupt,, 
richer  after  every  ruin;  here,  in  one  word  (oh,  wicked 
Englishman,  to  say  it!) — here  is  the  American!  He  lifted 
his  eye-glass  to  inspect  a  Western  lady,  who  at  once  be 
came  aware  of  the  glance,  reddened  and  retired  deeper 
into  the  female  part  of  the  cabin.  Here  was  the  pure, 
modest,  sensitive  and  shrinking  woman  of  America — 
shrinking  when  no  evil  is  intended,  and  sensitive  like  dis 
eased  flesh,  that  thrills  if  you  but  point  at  it,  and  strangely 
modest,  without  confidence  in  the  modesty  of  other  people, 
and  admirably  pure,  with  such  a  quick  apprehension  of  all 
impurity. 

In  this  manner  I  went  all  through  the  cabin,  hitting 
everybody  as  hard  a  lash  as  I  could  and  laying  the  whole 
blame  on  the  infernal  Englishman.  At  length  I  caught 
the  eyes  of  my  own  image  in  the  looking-glass,  where  a 
number  of  the  party  were  likewise  reflected,  and  among 
them  the  Englishman,  who  at  that  moment  was  intently 
observing  myself. 

The  crimson  curtain  being  let  down  between  the  ladies 
and  gentlemen,  the  cabin  became  a  bed-chamber  for 
twenty  persons,  who  were  laid  on  shelves,  one  above 
another.  For  a  long  time  our  various  incornmoditics  kept 
us  all  awake,  except  five  or  six,  who  were  accustomed  to 
sleep  nightly  amid  the  uproar  of  their  own  snoring,  and 
had  little  to  dread  from  any  other  species  of  disturbance. 
It  is  a  curious  fact  that  these  snorers  had  been  the  most 
quiet  people  in  the  boat  while  awake  and  became  peace- 
breakers  only  when  others  ceased  to  be  so,  breathing 
tumult  out  of  their  repose.  Would  it  were  possible  to  affix 
a  wind-instrument  to  the  nose,  and  thus  make  melody  of  a 
snore,  so  that  a  sleeping  lover  might  serenade  his  mistress 
or  a  congregation  snore  a  psalm-time!  Other,  though 
fainter  sounds  than  these,  contributed  to  my  restlessness. 
My  head  was  close  to  the  crimson  curtain — the  sexual 
division  of  the  boat — behind  which  I  continually  heard 
whispers  and  stealthy  footsteps,  the  noise  of  a  comb  laid 
on  the  table  or  a  slipper  dropped  on  the  floor;  the  twang, 
like  a  broken  harp-string,  caused  by  loosening  a  tight  belt; 
the  rustling  of  a  gown  in  its  descent  and  the~unlacing  of  a 
pair  of  stays.  My  ears  seemed  to  have  the  properties  of 
an  eye;  a  visible  image  pestered  my  fancy  in  the  darkness; 


SKETCHES  FROM  MEMORY.  343 

the  curtain  was  withdrawn  between  me  and  the  Western 
lady,  who  yet  disrobed  herself  without  a  blush. 

Finally  all  was  hushed  in  that  quarter.  Still,  I  was 
more  broad  awake  than  through  the  whole  preceding  day, 
and  felt  a  feverish  impulse  to  toss  my  limbs  miles  apart 
and  appease  the  unquietness  of  mind  by  that  of  matter. 
Forgetting  that  my  birth  was  hardly  so  wide  as  a  cofHn,  I 
turned  suddenly  over  and  fell  like  an  avalanche  on  the 
floor,  to  the  disturbance  of  the  whole  community  of  sleepers. 
As  there  were  no  bones  broken,  I  blessed  the  accident  and 
went  on  deck.  A  lantern  was  burning  at  each  end  of  the 
boat  and  one  of  the  crew  was  stationed  at  the  bows,  keep 
ing  watch  as  mariners  do  on  the  ocean.  Though  the  rain 
had  ceased,  the  sky  was  all  one  cloud  and  the  darkness  so 
intense  that  there  seemed  to  be  no  world  except  the  little 
space  on  which  our  lantern  glimmered.  Yet  it  was  an 
impressive  scene.  \Ve  were  traversing  the  *•  long  level,"  a 
dead  ilat  between  Vtica  and  Syracuse  where  the  canal  has 
not  rise  or  fall  enough  to  require  a  lock  for  nearly  seventy 
miles.  There  can  hardly  be  a  more  dismal  tract  of  country. 
The  forest  which  covers  it,  consisting  chiefly  of  white 
cedar,  black  ash  and  other  trees  that  live  in  excessive 
moisture  is  now  decayed  and  death-struck  by  the  partial 
draining  of  the  swamp  into  the  great  ditch  of  the  canal. 
Sometimes,  indeed,  our  lights  were  reflected  from  pools  of 
stagnant  water  which  stretched  far  in  among  the  trunks  of 
the  trees  beneath  dense  masses  of  dark  foliage.  Hut  generally 
the  tall  stems  and  intermingled  branches  were  naked  and 
brought  into  strong  relief  amid  the  surrounding  gloom  by 
the  whitenessof  their  decay.  Often  we  beheld  the  prostrate 
form  of  some  old  sylvan  giant  which  had  fallen  and  crushed 
down  smaller  trees  under  its  immense  ruin.  In  spots 
where  destruction  had  been  riotous  the  lanterns  showed 
perhaps  a  hundred  trunks,  erect,  half  overthrown,  extended 
along  the  ground  resting  on  their  shattered  limbs  or  tossing 
them  desperately  into  the  darkness,  but  all  of  one  ashy 
white,  all  naked  together  in  desolate  confusion.  Thus 
growing  out  of  the  night  as  we  drew  nigh  and  vanishing 
as  we  glided  on,  based  on  obscurity  and  overhung  and 
bounded  by  it,  the  scene  was  ghost-like — the  very  land  of 
unsubstantial  things  whither  dreams  might  betake  them 
selves  when  they  quit  the  slumberer's  brain. 

My  fancy  found  another  emblem.     The  wild  nature  of 


344  MOSSKS  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

America  had  been  driven  to  this  desert  place  by  the  en 
croachments  of  civilized  man.  And  even  here,  where  the 
savage  queen  was  throned  on  the  ruins  of  her  empire,  did 
we  penetrate  a  vulgar  and  worldly  throng  intruding  on  her 
latest  solitude.  In  other  lands  Decay  sits  among  fallen 
palaces,  but  here  her  home  is  in  the  forests. 

Looking  ahead,  I  discerned  a  distant  light,  announcing 
the  approach  of  another  boat,  which  soon  passed  us,  and 
proved  to  be  a  rusty  old  scow — just  such  a  craft  as  the 
"  Flying  Dutchman"  would  navigate  on  the  canal.  Per 
haps  it  was  that  celebrated  personage  himself  wiiom  I  im 
perfectly  distinguished  at  the  helm  in  a  glazed  cap  and 
rough  great-coat,  with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth,  leaving  the 
fumes  of  tobacco  a  hundred  yards  behind.  Shortly  after 
our  boatman  blew  a  horn,  sending  a  long  and  melancholy 
note  through  the  forest  avenue  as  a  signal  for  some  watcher 
in  the  wilderness  to  be  ready  with  a  change  of  horses. 

We  had  proceeded  a  mile  or  two  with  our  fresh  team 
when  the  tow-rope  got  entangled  in  a  fallen  branch  on  the 
edge  of  the  canal  and  caused  a  momentary  delay,  during 
which  I  went  to  examine  the  phosphoric  light  of  an  old  tree 
a  little  within  the  forest.  It  was  not  the  first  delusive  radi 
ance  that  I  had  followed.  The  tree  lay  along  the  ground  and 
was  wholly  converted  into  a  mass  of  diseased  splendor  which 
threw  a  ghastliness  around.  Being  full  of  conceits  that 
night,  I  called  it  a  frigid  fire,  a  funeral  light  illumining  de 
cay  and  death — an  emblem  of  fame  that  gleams  around  the 
dead  man  without  warming  him,  or  of  genius  when  it  owes 
its  brilliancy  to  moral  rottenness — and  was  thinking  that 
such  ghost-like  torches  were  just  fit  to  light  up  this  dead 
forest  or  to  blaze  coldly  in  tombs,  when,  starting  from  my 
abstraction,  I  looked  up  the  canal.  I  recollected  myself, 
and  discovered  the  lanterns  glimmering  far  away. 

"  Boat  ahoy  ! "  shouted  I,  making  a  trumpet  of  my  closed 
fists. 

Though  the  cry  must  have  rung  for  miles  along  that 
hollow  passage  of  the  woods,  it  produced  no  effect.  These 
packet-boats  made  up  for  their  snail-like  pace  by  never 
loitering  day  or  night,  especially  for  those  who  have  paid 
their  fare.  Indeed,  the  captain  had  an  interest  in  getting 
rid  of  me,  for  I  was  his  creditor  for  a  breakfast. 

"  They  are  gone!  Heaven  be  praised,"  ejaculated  I,  "'for 
J  cannot  possibly  overtake  them  !  Here  am  J  pn,  the  '  long 


SKETCHES  FROM  HEMOR  F.  345 

level '  at  midnight  with  the  comfortable  prospect  of  a  walk 
to  Syracuse,  where  my  baggage  will  be  left.  And  now  to 
find  a  house  or  shed  wherein  to  pass  the  night." 

So  thinking  aloud,  I  took  a  flambeau  from  the  old  tree — 
burning,  but  consuming  not — to  light  my  steps  withal,  and 
like  a  jiick-o'-the-lantern  set  out  on  my  midnight  tour. 

THE    INLAND    PORT. 

It  was  a  bright  forenoon  when  I  set  foot  on  the  beach  at 
Burlington  and  took  leave  of  the  two  boatmen  in  whose 
little  skiff  I  had  voyaged  since  daylight  from  Peru.  Not 
that  we  had  come  that  morning  from  South  America,  but 
only  from  the  New  York  shore  of  Lake  Champlain.  The 
highlands  of  the  coast  behind  us  stretched  north  and  south 
in  a  double  range  of  bold  blue  peaks  gazing  over  each 
others'  shoulders  at  the  Green  Mountains  of  Vermont. 

The  latter  are  far  the  loftiest,  and  from  the  opposite  side 
of  the  lake  had  displayed  a  more  striking  outline.  AVe 
were  now  almost  at  their  feet,  and  could  see  only  a  sandy 
beach  sweeping  beneath  a  woody  bank  around  the  semi 
circular  bay  of  Burlington. 

The  painted  lighthouse  on  a  small  green  island,  the 
wharves  and  warehouses  with  sloops  and  schooners  moored 
alongside  or  at  anchor  or  spreading  their  canvas  to  the 
wind,  and  boats  rowing  from  point  to  point,  reminded  me 
of  some  fishing-town  on  the  seacoast.  But  I  had  no  need  of 
tasting  the  water  to  convince  myself  that  Lake  Champlain 
was  not  an  arm  of  the  sea;  its  quality  was  evident  both  by 
its  silvery  surface  when  unruffled  and  a  faint  but  unpleasant 
sickly  smell  forever  steaming  up  in  the  sunshine.  One 
breeze  from  the  Atlantic,  with  its  briny  fragrance,  would 
be  worth  more  to  these  inland  people  than  all  the  perfumes 
of  Arabia.  On  closer  inspection  the  vessels  at  the  wharves 
looked  hardly  seaworthy,  there  being  a  great  lack  of  tar 
about  the  seams  and  rigging,  and  perhaps  other  deficiencies 
quite  as  much  to  the  purpose. 

I  observed  not  a  single  sailor  in  the  port.  There  were 
men,  indeed,  in  blue  jackets  and  trousers,  but  not  of  the 
true  nautical  fashion,  such  as  dangle  before  slop  shops ; 
others  wore  tight  pantaloons  and  coats  preponderously 
long-tailed,  cutting  very  queer  figures  at  the  masthead  ; 
and,  in  short,  these  fresh-water  fellows  had  about  the  same 
analogy  to  the  real  "  old  salt,"  with  his  tarpaulin,  pea- 


346  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

jacket  and  sailor-cloth  trousers,  as  a  lake-fish  to  a  New 
foundland  cod. 

Nothing  struck  me  more  in  Burlington  than  the  great 
number  of  Irish  emigrants.  They  have  filled  the  British 
provinces  to  the  brim,  and  still  continue  to  ascend  the  St. 
Lawrence  in  infinite  tribes,  overflowing  by  every  outlet 
into  the  states.  At  Burlington  they  swarm  in  huts  and 
mean  dwellings  near  the  lake,  lounge  about  the  wharves 
and  elbow  the  native  citizens  nearly  out  of  competition  in 
their  own  line.  Every  species  of  mere  bodily  labor  is  the 
prerogative  of  these  Irish.  Such  is  their  multitude,  in 
comparison  with  any  possible  demand  for  their  services, 
that  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  a  third  part  of  them 
should  earn  even  a  daily  glass  of  whiskey,  which  is  doubt 
less  their  first  necessary  of  life,  daily  bread  being  only  the 
second. 

Some  were  angling  in  the  lake,  but  had  caught  only  a 
few  perch,  which  little  fishes,  without  a  miracle,  would  be 
nothing  among  so  many.  A  miracle  there  certainly  must 
have  been,  and  a  daily  one,  for  the  subsistence  of  these 
wandering  hordes.  The  men  exhibit  a  lazy  strength  and 
careless  merriment,  as  if  they  had  fed  well  hitherto  and 
meant  to  feed  better  hereafter;  the  women  strode  about 
uncovered  in  the  open  air,  with  far  plumper  waists  and 
brawnier  limbs,  as  well  as  bolder  faces,  than  our  shy  and 
slender  females;  and  their  progeny,  which  was  innumer 
able,  had  the  reddest  and  the  roundest  cheeks  of  any  chil 
dren  of  America. 

While  we  stood  at  the  wharf  the  bell  of  a  steamboat 
gave  two  preliminary  peals,  and  she  dashed  away  for 
Plattsburg,  leaving  a  trail  of  smoky  breath  behind  and 
breaking  the  glassy  surface  of  the  lake  before  her.  Our 
next  movement  brought  us  into  a  handsome  and  busy 
square  the  sides  of  which  were  filled  up  with  White  houses, 
brick  stores,  a  church,  a  court-house  and  a  bank.  Some  of 
these  edifices  had  roofs  of  tin,  in  the  fashion  of  Montreal, 
and  glittered  in  the  sun  with  cheerful  splendor,  imparting 
a  lively  effect  to  the  whole  square.  One  brick  building 
designated  in  large  letters  as  the  custom-house  reminded 
us  that  this  inland  village  is  a  port  of  entry  largely  con 
cerned  in  foreign  trade  and  holding  daily  intercourse  with 
the  British  empire.  In  this  border  country  the  Canadian 
bank-notes  circulate  as  freely  as  our  own,  and  British  and 


SKETCHES  FROM  MEMORY.  347 

American  coin  are  jumbled  into  the  same  pocket,  the 
effigies  of  the  king  of  England  being  made  to  kiss  those  of 
the  Goddess  of  Liberty.  Perhaps  there  was  an  emblem  in 
the  involuntary  contact. 

There  was  a  pleasant  mixture  of  people  in  the  square  of 
Burlington  such  as  cannot  be  seen  elsewhere  at  one  view- 
merchants  from  Montreal,  British  officers  from  the  frontier 
garrisons,  French  Canadians,  wandering  Irish,  Scotchmen 
of  a  better  class,  gentlemen  of  the  South  on  a  pleasure- 
tour,  country  squires  on  business,  and  a  great  throng  of 
Green  Mountain  boys  with  their  horses,  wagons  and  ox- 
teams — true  yankees  in  aspect,  looking  more  superlatively 
so  by  contrast  with  such  a  variety  of  foreigners. 

KOCHESTER. 

The  gray  but  transparent  evening  rather  shaded  than  ob 
scured  the  scene,  leaving  its  stronger  features  visible,  and 
even  improved  by  the  medium  through  which  I  beheld  them. 
The  volume  of  water  is  not  very  great  nor  the  roar  deep 
enough  to  be  termed  grand,  though  such  praise  might  have 
been  appropriate  before  the  good  people  of  Rochester  had 
abstracted  a  part  of  the  unprofitable  sublimity  of  the  cas 
cade.  The  Genesee  has  contributed  so  bountifully  to  their 
canal  and  mill-dams  that  it  approaches  the  precipice  with 
diminished  pomp  and  rushes  over  it  in  foaming  streams  of 
various  width,  leaving  a  broad  face  of  the  rock  insulated 
and  unwashed  between  the  two  main  branches  of  the  fall 
ing  river.  Still,  it  was  an  impressive  sight  to  one  who  had 
not  seen  Niagara.  I  confess,  however,  that  my  chief  inter 
est  arose  from  a  legend  connected  with  these  falls  which 
will  become  poetical  in  the  lapse  of  years,  and  was  already 
so  to  me  as  I  pictured  the  catastrophe  out  of  dusk  and  soli 
tude.  It  was  from  a  platform  raised  over  the  naked  island 
of  the  clilf  in  the  middle  of  the  cataract  that  Sam  Patch 
took  his  last  leap  and  alighted  in  the  other  world.  Strange 
as  it  may  appear  that  any  uncertainty  should  rest  upon  his 
fate,  which  was  consummated  in  the  sight  of  thousands,  many 
will  tell  you  that  the  illustrious  Patch  concealed  himself  in 
a  cave  under  the  falls,  and  has  continued  to  enjoy  posthu 
mous  renown  without  foregoing  the  comforts  of  this  present 
life.  But  the  poor  fellow  prized  the  shout  of  the  multitude 
too  much  not  to  have  claimed  it  at  the  instant  had  he  sur 
vived.  He  will  not  be  seen  again,  unless  his  ghost,  in  such 


348  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

a  twilight  as  wheii  I  was  there,  should  emerge  from  the 
foam  and  vanish  among  the  shadows  that  fall  from  cliff  to 
cliff. 

How  stern  a  moral  may  be  drawn  from  the  story  of  poor 
Sam  Patch!  Why  do  we  call  him  a  madman  or  a  fool, 
when  he  has  left  his  memory  around  the  falls  of  the  Gen- 
essee  more  permanently  than  if  the  letters  of  his  name  had 
been  hewn  into  the  forehead  of  the  precipice?  Was  the 
leaper  of  cataracts  more  mad  or  foolish  than  other  men  who 
throw  away  life  or  misspend  it  in  pursuit  of  empty  fame, 
and  seldom  so  triumphant  as  he?  That  which  he  won  is 
as  invaluable  as  any  except  the  unsought  glory  spreading 
like  the  rich  perfume  of  richer  fruit  from  virtuous  and 
useful  deeds. 

Thus  musing — wise  in  theory,  but  practically  as  great  a 
fool  as  Sam — 1  lifted  my  eyes  and  beheld  the  spires;  ware 
houses  and  dwellings  of  Rochester,  half  a  mile  distant,  on 
both  sides  of  the  river,  indistinctly  cheerful  with  the  twink 
ling  of  many  lights  amid  the  full  of  the  evening. 

The  town  had  sprung  up  like  a  mushroom,  but  no  pre 
sage  of  decay  could  be  drawn  from  its  hasty  growth.  Its 
edifices  are  of  dusky  brick,  and  of  stone  that  will  not  be 
grayer  in  a  hundred  years  than  now;  its  churches  are 
Gothic.  It  is  impossible  to  look  at  its  worn  pavements  and 
conceive  how  lately  the  forest-leaves  have  been  swept  away. 
The  most  ancient  town  in  Massachusetts  appear  quite  like 
an  affair  of  yesterday  compared  with  Rochester.  Its  attri 
butes  of  youth  are  the  activity  and  eager  life  with  which  it 
is  redundant.  The  whole  street,  sidewalks  and  center,  was 
crowded  with  pedestrians,  horsemen,  stage-coaches,  gigs, 
light  wagons,  and  heavy  ox-teams,  all  hurrying,  trotting, 
rattling  and  lumbering  in  a  throng  that  passed  continually, 
but  never  passed  away.  Here  a  country  wife  was  selecting 
a  churn  from  several  gayly-painted  ones  on  the  sunny  side 
walk;  there  a  farmer  was  bartering  his  produce,  and  in  two 
or  three  places  a  crowd  of  people  were  showering  bids  on  a 
vociferous  auctioneer.  I  saw  a  great  wagon  and  an  ox- 
chain  knocked  off  to  a  very  pretty  woman.  Numerous 
were  the  lottery-offices — those  true  temples  of  Mammon — 
where  red  and  yellow  bills  offered  splendid  fortunes  to  the 
world  at  large,  and  banners  of  painted  cloth  gave  notice 
that  the  "  lottery  draws  next  Wednesday."  At  the  ringing 
of  a  bell  judges,  jurymen,  lawyers  and  clients  elbowed  each 


SKETCHES  FROM  MEMORY.  349 

other  to  the  court-house  to  busy  themselves  with  cases  that 
would  doubtless  illustrate  the  gtate  of  society  had  I  the 
means  of  reporting  them.  The  number  of  public-houses 
benefited  the  flow  of  temporary  population.  Some  were 
farmers'  taverns — cheap,  homely  and  comfortable;  others 
were  magnificent  hotels  with  negro  waiters,  gentlemanly 
landlords  in  black  broadcloth  and  foppish  barkeepers  in 
Broadway  coats,  with  chased  gold  watches  in  their  waist 
coat  pockets.  I  caught  one  of  these  fellows  quizzing  me 
through  an  eye-glass.  The  porters  were  lumbering  up  the 
steps  with  baggage  from  the  packet-boats,  while  waiters 
plied  the  brush  on  dusty  travelers,  who  meanwhile  glanced 
over  the  innumerable  advertisements  in  the  daily 
papers. 

In  short,  everybody  seemed  to  be  there,  and  all  had  some 
thing  to  do,  and  were  doing  it  with  all  their  might,  except 
a  party  of  drunken  recruits  for  the  Western  military  posts, 
principally  Irish  and  Scotch,  though  they  wore  Uncle  Sam's 
gray  jacket  and  trousers.  I  noticed  one  other  idle  man. 
lie  carried  a  rifle  on  his  shoulder  and  a  powder-horn  across 
his  breast,  and  appeared  to  stare  about  him  with  confused 
wonder,  as  if  while  he  was  listening  to  the  wind  among  the 
forest-boughs  the  hum  and  bustle  of  an  instantaneous  city 
had  surrounded  him. 

AX    AFTERXOOX    SCENE. 

There  had  not  been  a  more  delicious  afternoon  than  this 
in  all  the  train  of  Summer,  the  air  being  a  sunny  perfume 
made  up  of  balm  and  warmth  and  gentle  brightness.  The 
oak  and  walnut  trees  over  my  head  retained  their  deep 
masses  of  foliage,  and  the  grass,  though  for  months  the 
pasturage  of  stray  cattle,  had  been  revived  with  the  fresh 
ness  of  early  June  by  the  autumnal  rains  of  the  proceeding 
week.  The  garb  of  Autumn,  indeed,  resembles  that  of 
Spring.  Dandelions  and  buttercups  were  sprinkled  along 
the  road-side  like  drops  of  brightest  gold  in  greenest  grass, 
and  a  star-shaped  little  flower  with  a  golden  centre.  In  a 
rocky  spot,  and  rooted  under  the  stone  wall,  there  was  one 
wild-rose  bush  bearing  three  roses,  very  faintly  tinted,  but 
blessed  with  spicy  fragrance.  The  same  tokens  would  have 
announced  that  the  year  was  brightening  into  the  glow  of 
summer.  There  were  violets,  too,  though  few  and  pale 
ones.  But  the  breath  of  September  was  diffused  through 


350  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

the  mild  air  whenever  a  little  breeze  shook  out  the  latent 
coolness. 

A   NIGHT-SCENE. 

The  steamboat  in  which  I  was  passenger  for  Detroit  had 
put  into  the  mouth  of  a  small  river  where  the  greater  part 
of  the  night  would  be  spent  in  repairing  some  damages 
of  the  machinery.  As  the  evening  was  warm,  though 
cloody  and  very  dark,  I  stood  on  deck  watching  a  scene 
that  would  not  have  attracted  a  second  glance  in  the  day 
time,  but  became  picturesque  by  the  magic  of  strong  light 
and  deep  shade.  Some  wild  Irishmen  were  replenishing 
our  stock  of  wood,  and  had  kindled  a  great  fire  on  the  bank 
to  illuminate  their  labors.  It  was  composed  of  large  logs 
and  dry  brushwood  heaped  together  with  careless  profusion, 
blazing  fiercely,  spouting  showers  of  sparks  into  the  dark 
ness  and  gleaming  wide  over  Lake  Erie — a  beacon  for  per 
plexed  voyagers  leagues  from  land. 

All  around  and  above  the  furnace  there  was  total  ob 
scurity.  No  trees  or  other  objects  caught  and  reflected  any 
portion  of  the  brightness,  which  thus  wasted  itself  in  the 
immense  void  of  night,  as  if  it  quivered  from  the  expiring 
embers  of  the  world  after  the  final  conflagration.  But  the 
Irishmen  were  continually  emerging  from  the  dense  gloom, 
passing  through  the  lurid  glow  and  vanishing  into  the 
gloom  on  the  other  side.  Sometimes  a  whole  figure  would 
be  made  visible  by  the  shirt-sleeves  and  light-colored  dress; 
others  were  but  half  seen,  like  imperfect  creatures;  many 
flitted  shadow-like  along  the  skirts  of  darkness,  tempting 
fancy  to  a  vain  pursuit;  and  often  a  face  alone  was  red 
dened  by  the  fire  and  stared  strangely  distinct,  with  no 
traces  of  a  body.  In  short,  these  wild  Irish,  distorted  and 
exaggerated  by  the  blaze,  now  lost  in  deep  shadow,  now 
bursting  into  sudden  splendor  and  now  struggling  between 
light  and  darkness,  formed  a  picture  which  might  have 
been  transferred  almost  unaltered  to  a  tale  of  the  super 
natural.  As  they  all  carried  lanterns  of  wood  and  often 
flung  sticks  upon  the  fire,  the  least  immaginative  spectator 
would  at  once  compare  them  to  devils  condemned  to  keep 
alive  the  flames  of  their  own  torments. 


THE  OLD  APPLE-DEALER.  351 


THE  OLD  APPLE-DEALER. 


TPIE  lover  of  the  moral  picturesque  may  sometimes  find 
what  he  seeks  in  a  character  which  is,  nevertheless,  of  too 
negative  a  description  to  be  seized  upon  and  represented  to 
the  imaginative  vision  by  word-painting.  As  an  instance 
I  remember  an  old  man  who  carries  on  a  little  trade  of  gin 
gerbread  and  apples  at  the  depot  of  one  of  our  railroads. 
While  awaiting  the  departure  of  the  cars,  my  observation, 
flitting  to  and  fro  among  the  livelier  characteristics  of  the 
scene,  has  often  settled  insensibly  upon  this  almost  hneless 
object.  Thus,  unconsciously  to  myself  and  unsuspected  by 
him,  I  have  studied  the  old  apple-dealer  until  he  has  be 
come  a  naturalized  citizen  of  my  inner  world.  How  little 
would  he  imagine — poor,  neglected,  friendless,  unappreci 
ated  and  with  little  that  demands  appreciation — that  the 
mental  eye  of  an  utter  stranger  has  so  often  reverted  to  his 
figure!  Many  a  noble  form,  many  a  beautifiul  face,  lias 
flitted  before  me  and  vanished  like  a  shadow;  it  is  a  strange 
witchcraft  whereby  this  faded  and  featureless  old  apple- 
dealer  has  gained  a  settlement  in  my  memory. 

lie  is  a  small  man  with  gray  hair  and  gray  stubble  beard, 
and  is  invariably  clad  in  a  shabby  surtout  of  snufl'-color 
closely  buttoned  and  half  concealing  a  pair  of  gray  panta 
loons,  the  whole  dress,  though  clean  and  entire,  being  evi 
dently  flimsy  with  much  wear.  His  face  thin,  withered, 
furrowed  and  with  features  which  even  age  has  failed  to 
render  impressive,  has  a  frost-bitten  aspect.  It  is  a  moral 
frost  which  no  physical  warmth  or  comfortableness  could 
counteract.  The  summer  sunshine  may  fling  its  white  heat 
upon  him,  or  the  good  fire  of  the  depot-room  make  him 
the  focus  of  its  blaze  on  a  winter's  day,  but  all  in  vain;  for 
still  the  old  man  looks  as  if  he  were  in  a  frosty  atmosphere, 


352  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

with  scarcely  warmth  enough  to  keep  life  in  the  region 
about  his  heart.  It  is  a  patient,  long-suffering,  quiet, 
hopeless,  shivering  aspect.  He  is  not  desperate — that, 
though  its  etymology  implies  no  more,  would  be  too  posi 
tive  an  expression — but  merely  devoid  of  hope.  As  all  his 
past  life,  probably,  offers  no  spots  of  brightness  to  his  mem 
ory,  so  he  takes  his  present  poverty  and  discomfort  as  en 
tirely  a  matter  of  course;  he  thinks  it  the  definition  of  ex 
istence,  so  far  as  himself  is  concerned  to  be  poor,  cold  and 
uncomfortable.  It  may  be  added  that  time  has  not  thrown 
dignity  as  a  mantle  over  the  old  man's  figure.  There  is 
nothing  venerable  about  him;  you  pity  him  without  a 
scruple. 

He  sits  on  a  bench  in  the  depot-room,  and  before  him, 
on  the  floor,  are  deposited  two  baskets  of  a  capacity  to  con 
tain  his  whole  stock  in  trade.  Across,  from  one  basket  to 
the  other,  extends  a  board  on  which  is  displayed  a  plate  of 
cakes  and  gingerbread,  some  russet  and  red-cheeked  apples 
and  a  box  containing  variegated  sticks  of  candy,  together 
with  that  delectable  condiment  known  by  children  as  Gib- 
ralter  rock,  neatly  done  up  in  white  paper.  There  is  like 
wise,  a  half-peck  measure  of  cracked  walnuts  and  two  or 
three  tin  half-pints  or  gills  filled  with  the  nut-kernels, 
ready  for  purchasers.  Such  are  the  small  commodities 
with  which  our  old  friend  comes  daily  before  the  world, 
ministering  to  its  petty  needs  and  little  freaks  of  appetite, 
and  seeking  thence  the  solid  subsistence — so  far  as  he  may 
subsist — of  his  life. 

A  slight  observer  would  speak  of  the  old  man's  quietude, 
but  on  closer  scrutiny  you  discover  that  there  is  a  continual 
unrest  within  him  which  somewhat  resembles  the  fluttering 
action  of  the  nerves  in  a  corpse  from  which  life  has  recently 
departed.  Though  he  never  exhibits  any  violent  action, 
and,  indeed,  might  appear  to  be  sitting  quite  still,  yet  you 
perceive,  when  his  minuter  peculiarities  begin  to  be  de 
tected,  that  he  is  always  making  some  little  movement  or 
other.  He  looks  anxiously  at  his  plate  of  cakes  or  pyra 
mid  of  apples,  and  slightly  alters  their  arrangement,  with 
an  evident  idea  that  a  great  deal  depends  on  their  being 
disposed  exactly  thus  and  so.  Then  for  a  moment  he  gazes 
out  of  the  window;  then  he  shivers  quietly  and  folds  his 
arms  across  his  breast,  as  if  to  draw  himself  closer  within 
himself,  and  thus  keep  a  flicker  of  warmth  in  his  lonesome 


THE  OLD  APPLE-DEALER.  353 

heart.  Now  he  turns  again  to  his  merchandise  of  cakes, 
apples  and  candy,  and  discovers  that  this  cake  or  that 
apple  or  yonder  stick  of  red-and-white  candy  has  somehow 

fot  out  of  its  proper  position.  And  is  there  not  a  walnnt- 
ernel  too  many  or  too  few  in  one  of  those  small  tin  meas 
ures?  Again  the  whole  arrangement  appears  to  be  settled 
to  his  mind,  but  in  the  course  of  a  minute  or  two  there 
will  assuredly  be  something  to  set  right.  At  times,  by  an 
indescribable  shadow  upon  his  features — too  quiet,  how 
ever,  to  be  noticed  until  you  are  familiar  with  his  ordinary 
aspect — the  expression  of  frost-bitten,  patient  despondency 
becomes  very  touching.  It  seems  as  if  just  at  that  instant 
the  suspicion  occurred  to  him  that  in  his  chill  decline  of 
life,  earning  scanty  bread  by  selling  cakes,  apples  and 
candy,  he  is  a  very  miserable  old  fellow. 

But  if  he  think  so  it  is  a  mistake.  He  can  never  suffer 
the  extreme  of  misery,  because  the  tone  of  his  whole  being 
is  too  much  subdued  for  him  to  feel  anything  acutely. 

Occasionally  one  of  the  passengers,  to  while  away  a  tedi 
ous  interval,  approaches  the  old  man,  inspects  the  articles 
upon  his  board,  and  even  peeps  curiously  into  the  two  bas 
kets.  Another,  striding  to  and  fro  along  the  room,  throws 
a  look  at  the  apples  and  gingerbread  at  every  turn.  A 
third,  it  may  be,  of  a  more  sensitive  and  delicate  texture 
of  being,  glances  shyly  thitherward,  cautious  not  to  excite 
expectations  of  a  purchaser,  while  yet  undetermined 
whether  to  buy.  But  there  appears  to  be  no  need  of  such 
a  scrupulous  regard  to  our  old  friend's  feelings.  True,  he 
is  conscious  of  the  remote  possibility  of  selling  a  cake  or 
an  apple,  but  innumerable  disappointments  have  rendered 
him  so  far  a  philosopher  that  even  if  the  purchased  article 
should  be  returned  he  will  consider  it  altogether  in  the  or 
dinary  train  of  events.  lie  speaks  to  none  and  makes  no 
sign  of  offering  his  wares  to  the  public;  not  that  he  is  de 
terred  by  pride,  but  by  the  certain  conviction  that  such 
demonstrations  would  not  increase  his  custom.  Besides, 
this  activity  in  business  would  require  an  energy  that  never 
could  have  been  a  characteristic  of  his  almost  passive  dis 
position  even  in  youth.  Whenever  an  actual  customer  ap 
pears,  the  old  man  looks  up  with  a  patient  eye.  If  the 
price  and  the  article  are  approved,  he  is  ready  to  make 
change;  otherwise,  his  eyelids  droop  again — sadly  enough, 
but  with  no  heavier  despondency  than  before.  He  shivers, 


354  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

perhaps,  folds  his  lean  arms  around  his  lean  body,  and  re 
sumes  the  lifelong,  frozen  patience  in  which  consists  his 
strength.  Once  in  a  while  a  schoolboy  comes  hastily  up, 
places  a  cent  or  two  upon  the  board,  and  takes  up  a  cake 
or  stick  of  candy  or  a  measure  of  walnuts  or  an  apple  as 
red-cheeked  as  himself.  There  are  no  words  as  to  price, 
that  being  as  well  known  to  the  buyer  as  to  the  seller. 
The  old  apple-dealer  never  speaks  an  unnecessary  word ; 
not  that  he  is  sullen  and  morose,  but  there  is  none  of  the 
cheeriness  and  briskness  in  him  that  stirs  up  people  to 
talk. 

Not  seldom  he  is  greeted  by  some  old  neighbor,  a  man 
well-to-do  in  the  world,  who  makes  a  civil,  patronizing  ob 
servation  about  the  weather,  and  then,  by  way  of  perform 
ing  a  charitable  deed,  begins  to  chaffer  for  an  apple.  Our 
friend  presumes  not  on  any  past  acquaintance;  he  makes 
the  briefest  possible  response  to  all  general  remarks  and 
shrinks  quietly  into  himself  again.  After  every  diminu 
tion  of  his  stock  he  takes  care  to  produce  from  the  basket 
another  cake,  another  stick  of  candy,  another  apple  or 
another  measure  of  walnuts  to  supply  the  place  of  the 
article  sold.  Two  or  three  attempts — or  perchance  half  a 
dozen — are  requisite  before  the  board  can  be  rearranged  to 
his  satisfaction.  If  he  had  received  a  silver  coin,  he  waits 
till  the  purchaser  is  out  of  sight,  then  examines  it  closely 
and  tries  to  bend  it  with  his  fingers  and  thumb;  finally  he 
puts  it  into  his  waistcoat-pocket  with  seemingly  a  gentle 
sigh.  This  sigh,  so  faint  as  to  be  hardly  perceptible  and 
not  expressive  of  any  definite  emotion,  is  the  accompani 
ment  and  conclusion  of  all  his  actions.  It  is  the  symbol 
of  the  dullness  and  torpid  melancholy  of  his  old  age, 
which  only  make  themselves  felt  sensibly  when  his  repose 
is  slightly  disturbed. 

Our  man  of  gingerbread  and  apples  is  not  a  specimen  of 
the  "  needy  man  who  has  seen  better  days."  Doubtless 
there  have  been  better  and  brighter  days  in  the  far-oil 
time  of  his  youth,  but  none  with  so  much  sunshine  of  pros 
perity  in  them  that  the  chill,  the  depression,  the  narrow 
ness  of  means,  in  his  declining  years,  can  have  come  upon 
him  by  surprise.  His  life  has  all  been  of  apiece.  His  sub 
dued  and  nerveless  boyhood  prefigured  his  abortive  prime, 
which  likewise  contained  within  itself  the  prophecy  and 
image  of  his  lean  and  torpid  age.  He  was  perhaps  a 


THE  OLD  APPLE-DEALER.  355 

mechanic  who  never  came  to  be  a  master  in  his  craft,  or  a 
petty  tradesman  rubbing  onward  between  passably-to-do 
and  poverty.  Possibly  he  may  look  back  to  some  brilliant 
epoch  of  his  career  when  there  were  $100  or  $200  to 
his  credit  in  the  savings-bank.  Such  must  have  been  the 
extent  of  his  better  fortune,  his  little  measure  of  this 
world's  triumphs — all  that  he  has  known  of  success.  A 
meek.,  downcast,  humble,  uncomplaining  creature,  he 
probably  has  never  felt  himself  entitled  to  more  than 
so  much  of  the  gifts  of  Providence.  Is  it  not  still  some 
thing  that  he  has  never  held  out  his  hand  for  charity  nor 
has  yet  been  driven  to  that  sad  home  and  household  of 
earth's  forlorn  and  broken-spirited  children,  the  alrnshouse? 
He  cherishes  no  quarrel,  therefore,  with  his  destiny,  nor 
with  the  author  of  it.  All  is  as  it  should  be. 

If,  indeed,  he  have  been  bereaved  of  a  son,  a  bold,  ener 
getic,  vigorous  young  man  on  whom  the  father's  feeble 
nature  leaned  as  on  a  staff  of  strength — in  that  case  he 
may  have  felt  a  bitterness  that  could  not  otherwise  have 
been  generated  in  his  heart.  But  methinksthe  joy  of  pos 
sessing  such  a  son  and  the  agony  of  losing  him  would  have 
developed  the  old  man's  moral  and  intellectual  nature  to  a 
much  greater  degree  than  we  now  find  it.  Intense  grief 
appears  to  be  as  much  out  of  keeping  with  his  life  as  fervid 
happiness. 

To  confess  the  truth,  it  is  not  the  easiest  matter  in  the 
world  to  define  and  individualize  a  character  like  this 
which  we  are  now  handling.  The  portrait  must  be  so  gen 
erally  negative  that  the  most  delicate  pencil  is  likely  to 
spoil  it  by  introducing  some  too  positive  tint.  Every 
touch  must  be  kept  down,  or  else  you  destroy  the  subdued 
tone  which  is  absolutely  essential  to  the  whole  effect. 
Perhaps  more  may  be  done  by  contrast  than  by  direct  de 
scription.  For  this  purpose  I  make  use  of  another  cake 
and  candy  merchant  who  likewise  infests  the  railroad 
depot.  This  latter  worthy  is  a  very  smar^tjind  well-dressed 
boy  of  10  years  old  or  thereabouts  who  skips  briskly 
hither  and  thither,  addressing  the  passengers  in  a  pert 
voice,  yet  with  somewhat  of  good-breeding  in  his  tone 
and  pronunciation.  Now  he  has  caught  my  eye  and  skips 
across  the  room  with  a  pretty  pertness  which  I  should  like 
to  correct  with  a  box  on  the  ear:  "Any  cake,  sir?  Any 
candy?" 


356  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

No,  none  for  me,  my  lad.  I  did  but  glance  at  your 
brisk  figure  in  order  to  catch  a  reflected  light  and  throw  it 
upon  your  old  rival  yonder. 

Again,  in  order  to  invest  my  conception  of  the  old  man 
with  a  more  decided  sense  of  reality,  I  look  at  him  in  the 
very  moment  of  intensest  bustle — on  the  arrival  of  the  cars. 
The  shriek  of  the  engine  as  it  rushes  into  the  car-house  is 
the  utterance  of  the  Steam-fiend  whom  man  has  subdued 
by  magic  spells  and  compels  to  serve  as  a  beast  of  burden. 
He  has  skimmed  rivers  in  his  headlong  rush,  dashed  through 
forests,  plunged  into  the  hearts  of  mountains  and  glanced 
from  the  city  to  the  desert  place  and  again  to  a  far-off  city, 
with  a  meteoric  progress  seen  and  out  of  sight  while  his 
reverberating  roar  still  fills  the  ear.  The  travelers  swarm 
forth  from  the  cars.  All  are  full  of  the  momentum  which 
they  have  caught  from  their  mode  of  conveyance.  It  seems 
as  if  the  whole  world,  both  morally  and  physically,  were 
detached  from  its  old  standfasts  and  set  in  rapid  motion. 
And  in  the  midst  of  this  terrible  activity  there  sits  the  old 
man  of  gingerbread,  so  subdued,  so  hopeless,  so  without  a 
stake  in  life  and  yet  not  positively  miserable — there  he  sits, 
the  forlorn  old  creature,  one  chill  and  somber  day  after  an 
other,  gathering  scanty  coppers  for  his  cakes,  apples  and 
candy — there  sits  the  old  apple-dealer  in  his  threadbare 
suit  of  snuff-color  and  gray  and  his  grizzly  stubble  beard. 
See!  he  folds  his  lean  arms  around  his  lean  figure  with  that 
quiet  sigh  and  that  scarcely  perceptible  shiver  which  are 
the  tokens  of  his  inward  state.  I  have  him  now.  He  and 
the  Steam-fiend  are  each  other's  antipodes;  the  latter  is  the 
type  of  all  that  go  ahead,  and  the  old  man  the  representa 
tive  of  that  melancholy  class  who  by  some  sad  witchcraft 
are  doomed  never  to  share  in  the  world's  exulting  progress. 
Thus  the  contrast  between  mankind  and  this  desolate 
brother  becomes  picturesque  and  even  sublime. 

And  now  farewell,  old  friend!  Little  do  you  suspect 
that  a  student  of  human  life  has  made  your  character  the 
theme  of  more  than  one  solitary  and  thoughtful  hour. 
Many  would  say  that  you  have  hardly  individuality  enough 
to  be  the  object  of  your  own  self-love.  How,  then,  can  a 
stranger's  eye  detect  anything  in  your  mind  and  heart  to 
study  and  to  wonder  at?  Yet  could  I  read  but  a  tithe  of 
what  is  written  there,  it  would  be  a  volume  of  deeper  and 
more  comprehensive  import  than  all  that  the  wisest  mortals 


THE  OLD  APPLE-DEALER.  357 

luive  given  to  the  world,  for  the  soundless  depths  of  the 
human  soul  and  of  eternity  have  an  opening  through  your 
breast.  God  be  praised,  were  it  only  for  your  sake  that 
the  present  shapes  of  human  existence  are  not  cast  in  iron 
nor  hewn  in  everlasting  adamant,  but  molded  of  the 
vapors  that  vanish  away  while  the  essence  flits  upward  to 
the  Infinite.  There  is  a  spiritual  essence  in  this  gray  and 
lean  old  shape  that  shall  flit  upward  too.  Yes,  doubtless 
there  is  a  region  where  the  lifelong  shiver  will  pass  away 
from  his  being  and  that  quiet  sigh  which  it  has  taken  him 
so  many  years  to  breathe  will  be  brought  to  a  close  for 
good  and  all. 


r 

358  MOSSES  FllOM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 


THE  ARTIST  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


AN"  ELDEKLY  man  with  his  pretty  daughter  on  his  arm 
was  passing  along  the  street  and  emerged  from  the  gloom 
of  the  cloudy  evening  into  the  light  that  fell  across  the 
pavement  from  the  window  of  a  small  shop.  It  was  a 
projecting  window,  and  on  the  inside  were  suspended  a 
variety  of  watches — pinchback,  silver  and  one  or  two  of 
gold — all  with  their  faces  turned  from  the  street,  as  if 
churlishly  disinclined  to  inform  the  wayfarers  what  o'clock 
it  was.  Seated  within  the  shop,  sidelong  to  the  window, 
with  his  pale  face  bent  earnestly  over  some  delicate  piece 
of  mechanism  on  which  was  thrown  the  concentrated 
luster  of  a  shade-lamp  appeared  a  young  man. 

"What  can  Owen  Warland  be  about ?"  muttered  old 
Peter  Hovenden,  himself  a  retired  watchmaker  and  the 
former  master  of  this  same  young  man  whose  occupation 
he  was  now  wondering  at.  "  What  can  the  fellow  be 
about?  These  six  months  past  I  have  never  come  by  his 
shop  without  seeing  him  just  as  steadily  at  work  as  now. 
It  would  be  a  flight  beyond  his  usual  foolery  to  seek  for 
the  perpetual  motion.  And  yet  I  know  enough  of  my 
old  business  to  be  certain  that  what  he  is  now  so  busy  with 
is  no  part  of  the  machinery  of  a  watch. " 

"  Perhaps,  father,"  said  Annie,  without  showing 
much  interest  in  the  question,  "  Owen  is  inventing  a 
new  kind  of  timekeeper.  1  am  sure  he  has  ingenuity 
enough." 

"Pooh,  child!  He  has  not  the  sort  of  ingenuity  to  in 
vent  anything  better  than  a  Dutch  toy,"  answered  her 
father,  who  had  formerly  been  put  to  much  vexation  by 
Owen  WarlamPs  irregular  genius.  "  A  plague  on  such 
ingenuity!  All  the  effect  that  ever  I  knew  of  it  was  to 
spoil  the  accuracy  of  some  of  the  best  watches  in  my  shop. 


TUB  ARTIST  OF  THE  BEA  UTIFUL.  359 

He  would  turn  the  sun  out  of  its  orbit  and  derange  the 
whole  course  of  time  if,  as  I  said  before,  his  ingenuity 
could  grasp  anything  bigger  than  a  child's  toy." 

"  Hush,  father  !  He  hears  you,"  whispered  Annie, 
pressing  the  old  man's  arm.  "  His  ears  are  as  delicate  as 
his  feelings  and  you  know  how  easily  disturbed  they  are. 
Do  let  us  move  on." 

So  Peter  Hovenden  and  his  daughter  Annie  plodded  on 
without  further  conversation,  until  in  a  by-street  of  the 
town  they  found  themselves  passing  the  open  door  of  a 
blacksmith's  shop.  Within  was  seen  the  forge,  now  blaz 
ing  up  and  illuminating  the  high  and  dusky  roof,  and 
now  confining  its  luster  to  a  narrow  precinct  of  the  coal- 
strewn  floor,  according  as  the  breath  of  the  bellows  was 
puffed  forth  or  again  inhaled  into  its  vast  leathern  lungs. 
In  the  intervals  of  brightness  it  was  easy  to  distinguish 
objects  in  remote  corners  of  the  shop  and  the  horseshoes 
that  hung  upon  the  wall;  in  the  momentary  gloom  the  fire 
seemed  to  be  glimmering  amid  the  vagueness  of  un in 
closed  space.  Moving  about  in  this  red  glare  and  alter 
nate  dusk,  was  the  figure  of  the  blacksmith,  well  worthy 
to  be  viewed  in  so  picturesque  an  aspect  of  light  and  shade, 
where  the  bright  blaze  struggled  with  the  black  night,  as 
if  each  would  have  snatched  his  comely  strength  from  the 
other.  Anon  he  drew  a  white-hot  bar  of  iron  from  the 
coals,  laid  it  on  the  anvil,  uplifted  his  arm  of  might  and 
was  seen  enveloped  in  the  myriads  of  sparks  which  the 
strokes  of  his  hammer  scattered  into  the  surrounding 
gloom. 

"  Now,  that  is  a  pleasant  sight,"  said  the  old  watch 
maker.  "  I  know  what  it  is  to  work  in  gold,  but  give  me 
the  worker  in  iron,  after  all  is  said  and  done.  He  spends 
his  labor  upon  a  reality.  What  say  you,  daughter 
Annie?" 

"  Pray,  don't  speak  so  loud  father,"  whispered  Annie. 
"Robert  Danforth  will  hear  you." 

"And  what  if  he  should  hear  me?"  said  Peter  Hoven 
den.  "  I  say  again  it  is  a  good  and  a  wholesome  thing  to 
depend  upon  main  strength  and  reality,  and  to  earn  one's 
bread  with  the  bare  and  brawny  arm  of  a  blacksmith.  A 
watchmaker  gets  his  brain  puzzled  by  his  wheels  within  a 
wheel  or  loses  his  health  or  the  nicety  of  his  eyesight,  as 
was  my  case,  and  finds  himself  at  middle  age  or  a  little 


360  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

after  past  labor  at  his  own  trade  and  fit  for  nothing  else, 
yet  too  poor  to  live  at  his  ease.  So  I  say  once  again, 
give  me  main  strength  for  my  money.  And  then  how  it 
takes  the  nonsense  out  of  a  man  !  Did  you  ever  hear  of 
a  blacksmith  being  such  a  fool  as  Owen  Warland, 
yonder?" 

"Well  said,  Uncle  Hovenden!"  shouted  Robert  Dan- 
forth,  from  the  forge,  in  a  full,  deep,  merry  voice  that 
made  the  roof  re-echo.  "And  what  says  Miss  Annie  to 
that  doctrine?  She,  I  suppose,  will  think  it  a  genteeler 
business  to  tinker  up  a  lady's  watch  than  to  forge  a  horse 
shoe  or  make  a  gridiron?" 

Annie  drew  her  father  onward,  without  giving  him  time 
for  reply. 

But  we  must  return  to  Owen  Warland's  shop,  and  spend 
more  meditation  upon  his  history  and  character  than  either 
Peter  Hovenden,  or  probably  his  daughter  Annie,  or 
Owen's  old  schoolfellow  Robert  Danforth,  would  have 
thought  due  to  so  slight  a  subject.  From  the  time  that  his 
little  fingers  could  grasp  a  pen-knife  Owen  had  been  re 
markable  for  a  delicate  ingenuity  which  sometimes  pro 
duced  pretty  shapes  in  wood,  principally  figures  of  flowers 
and  birds,  and  sometimes  seemed  to  aim  at  the  hidden 
mysteries  of  mechanism.  But  it  was  always  for  purposes 
of  grace,  and  never  with  any  mockery  of  the  useful.  He 
did  not,  like  a  crowd  of  school-boy  artisans,  construct 
little  wind-mills  on  the  angle  of  a  barn  or  water-mills  across 
the  neighboring  brook.  Those  who  discovered  such  pe 
culiarity  in  the  boy  as  to  think  it  worth  their  while  to  ob 
serve  him  closely  sometimes  saw  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
was  attempting  to  imitate  the  beautiful  movements  of  nat 
ure  as  exemplified  in  the  flight  of  birds  or  the  activity  of 
little  animals.  It  seemed,  in  fact,  a  new  development  of 
the  love  of  the  beautiful,  such  as  might  have  made  him  a 
poet,  a  painter  or  a  sculptor,  and  which  was  as  completely 
refined  from  all  utilitarian  coarseness  as  it  could  have  been 
in  either  of  the  fine  arts.  He  looked  with  singular  distaste 
at  the  stiff  and  regular  processes  of  ordinary  machinery. 
Being  once  carried  to  see  a  steam-engine  in"  the  expecta 
tion  that  his  intuitive  comprehension  of  mechanical  prin 
ciples  would  be  gratified,  he  turned  pale  and  grew  sick,  us 
if  something  monstrous  and  unnatural  had  been  presented 
to  him,  This  horror  wus  partly  owing  to  the  size  and  tor- 


THE  ARTIST  OF  THE  BEA  UTIFUL.  361 

rible  energy  of  the  iron-laborer,  for  the  character  of  Owen's 
mind  was  microscopic  and  tended  naturally  to  the  minute, 
in  accordance  with  his  diminutive  frame  and  the  marvel 
ous  smallness  and  delicate  power  of  his  fingers.  Not  that 
his  sense  of  beauty  was  thereby  diminished  into  a  sense  of 
prettiness.  The  beautiful  idea  has  no  relation  to  size,  and 
may  be  as  perfectly  developed  in  a  space  too  minute  for 
any  but  microscopic  investigation  as  within  the  ample  verge 
that  is  measured  by  the  arc  of  the  rainbow.  But,  at  all 
events,  this  characteristic  minuteness  in  his  objects  and 
accomplishments  made  the  world  even  more  incapable 
than  it  might  otherwise  have  been  of  appreciating  Owen 
AVarland's  genius.  The  boy's  relatives  saw  nothing  better 
to  be  done — as,  perhaps,  there  was  not — than  to  bind  him 
apprentice  to  a  watchmaker,  hoping  that  his  strange  in 
genuity  might  thus  be  regulated  and  put  to  utilitarian 
purposes. 

Peter  Hovenden's  opinion  of  his  apprentice  has  already 
been  expressed.  He  could  make  nothing  of  the  lad. 
Owen's  apprehension  of  the  professional  mysteries,  it  is 
true,  was  inconceivably  quick,  but  he  altogether  forgot  or 
despised  the  grand  object  of  a  watchmaker's  business,  and 
cared  no  more  for  the  measurement  of  time  than  if  it  had 
been  merged  into  eternity.  So  long,  however,  as  he  re 
mained  under  his  old  master's  care  Owen's  lack  of  sturdi- 
ness  made  it  possible,  by  strict  injunctions  and  sharp  over 
sight,  to  restrain  his  creative  eccentricity  within  bounds; 
but  when  his  apprenticeship  was  served  out  and  he  had 
taken  the  little  shop  which  Peter  llovenden's  failing  eye 
sight  compelled  him  to  relinquish,  then  did  people  recog 
nize  how  unfit  a  person  was  Owen  AVarland  to  lead  old 
blind  Father  Time  along  his  daily  course.  One  of  his 
most  rational  projects  was  to  connect  a  musical  operation 
with  the  machinery  of  his  watches,  so  that  all  the  harsh 
dissonances  of  life  might  be  rendered  tuneful  and  each 
flitting  moment  fall  into  the  abyss  of  the  past  in  golden 
drops  of  harmony.  If  a  family  clock  was  intrusted  to  him 
for  repair— one  of  those  tall,  ancient  clocks  that  have 
grown  nearly  allied  to  human  nature  by  measuring  out  the 
life-time  of  many  generations — he  would  take  upon  him 
self  to  arrange  a  dance  or  funeral  procession  of  figures 
across  its  venerable  face,  representing  twelve  mirthful  or 
melancholy  hours.  Several  freaks  of  this  kind  quite  de- 


3G2  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

stroyed  the  young  watch  maker's  credit  with  that  steady 
and  matter-of-fact  class  of  people  who  hold  the  opinion 
that  time  is  not  to  be  trifled  with,  whether  considered  as 
the  medium  of  advancement  and  prosperity  in  this  world 
or  preparation  for  the  next.  His  custom  rapidly  dimin 
ished — a  misfortune,  however,  that  was  probably  reckoned 
among  his  better  accidents  by  Owen  Warland,  who  was 
becoming  more  and  more  absorbed  in  a  secret  occupation 
which  drew  all  his  science  and  manual  dexterity  into  itself 
and  likewise  gave  full  employment  to  the  characteristic 
tendencies  of  his  genius.  This  pursuit  had  already  con 
sumed  many  months. 

After  the  old  watchmaker  and  his  pretty  daughter  had 
gazed  at  him  out  of  the  obscurity  of  the  street  Owen  War- 
land  was  seized  with  a  fluttering  of  the  nerves  which  made 
his  hand  tremble  too  violently  to  proceed  with  such  deli 
cate  labor  as  he  was  now  engaged  upon. 

"  It  was  Annie  herself  !"  murmured  he.  "I  should 
have  known  by  this  throbbing  of  my  heart  before  I  heard 
her  father's  voice.  Ah!  how  it  throbs!  I  shall  scarcely 
be  able  to  work  again  on  this  exquisite  mechanism  to 
night.  Annie,  dearest  Annie  ;  thou  shouldst  give  firm 
ness  to  my  heart  and  hand  and  not  shake  them  thus;  for 
if  I  strive  to  put  the  very  spirit  of  beauty  into  form  and 
give  it  motion  it  is  for  thy  sake  alone.  Oh,  throbbing 
heart,  be  quiet!  If  my  labor  be  thus  thwarted  there  will 
come  vague  and  unsatisfied  dreams  which  will  leave  me 
spiritless  to-morrow." 

As  he  was  endeavoring  to  settle  himself  again  to  his 
task  the  shop-door  opened  and  gave  admittance  to  no  other 
than  the  stalwart  figure  which  Peter  Hovenden  had  paused 
to  admire  as  seen  amid  the  light  and  shadow  of  the  black 
smith's  shop.  Kobert  Danforth  had  brought  a  little  anvil 
of  his  own  manufacture  and  peculiarly  constructed,  which 
the  young  artist  had  recently  bespoken.  Owen  examined 
the  article  and  pronounced  it  fashioned  according  to  his 
wish. 

"  Why,  yes,"  said  Kobert  Danforth,  his  strong  voice  fill 
ing  the  shop  as  with  the  sound  of  a  bass-viol;  "  I  consider 
myself  equal  to  anything  in  the  way  of  my  own  trade, 
though  I  should  have  made  but  a  poor  figure  at  yours  with 
such  a  fist  as  this,"  added  he,  laughing,  as  he  laid  his  vast 
hand  beside  the  delicate  one  of  Owen.  "But  what,  then? 


THE  ARTIST  OF  THE  BE  A  UT1FUL.  363 

I  put  more  main  strength  into  one  blow  of  my  sledge 
hammer  than  all  that  you  have  expended  since  you  were  a 
'prentice.  Is  not  that  the  truth?" 

"  Very  probably,"  answered  the  low  and  slender  voice 
of  Owen.  "  Strength  is  an  earthly  monster;  I  make  no 
pretensions  to  it.  My  force,  whatever  there  may  be  of  it, 
is  altogether  spiritual." 

"Well,  but,  Owen,  what  are  you  about?"  asked  his  old 
school-fellow,  still  in  such  a  hearty  volume  of  tone  that  it 
made  the  artist  shrink,  especially  as  the  question  related  to 
a  subject  so  sacred  as  the  absorbing  dream  of  his  imagina 
tion.  "  Folk's  do  say  that  you  are  trying  to  discover  the 
perpetual  motion." 

"  '  The  perpetual  motion  '?  Nonsense  I"  replied  Owen 
Warland,  with  a  movement  of  disgust,  for  he  was  full 
of  little  petulances.  "  It  never  can  be  discovered.  It  is  a 
dream  that  may  delude  men  whose  brains  are  mystified  with 
matter,  but  not  me.  Besides,  if  such  a  discovery  were  pos 
sible,  it  would  not  be  worth  my  while  to  make  it  only  to 
have  the  secret  turned  to  such  purposes  as  are  now  effected 
by  steam  and  water  power.  I  am  not  ambitious  to  be  hon 
ored  with  the  paternity  of  a  new  kind  of  cotton-machine." 

"That  would  bedroll  enough!"  cried  the  blacksmith, 
breaking  out  into  such  an  uproar  of  laughter  that  Owen 
himself  and  the  bell-glasses  on  his  work-board  quivered  in 
unison.  "No,  no,  Owen!  No  child  of  yours  will  have 
iron  joints  and  sinews.  Well,  I  won't  hinder  you  any 
more.  Good-night,  Owen,  and  success  !  and  if  you  need 
any  assistance,  so  far  as  a  downright  blow  of  hammer  upon 
anvil  will  answer  the  purpose,  I'm  your  man  ;"  and  with 
another  laugh  the  man  of  main  strength  left  the  shop. 

"  How  strange  it  is,"  whispered  OWn  Warland  to  him 
self,  leaning  his  head  upon  his  hand,  "  that  all  my  musings, 
rny  purposes,  my  passion  for  the  beautiful,  my  conscious 
ness  of  power  to  create  it — a  finer,  more  ethereal  power,  of 
which  this  earthy  giant  can  have  no  conception — all,  all, 
look  so  vain  and  idle  whenever  my  path  is  crossed  by 
Robert  Danforth  !  He  would  drive  me  mad  were  I  to  meet 
him  often.  His  hard,  brute  force  darkens  and  confuses 
the  spiritual  element  within  me.  But  I  too  will  be  strong 
in  my  own  way.  I  will  not  yield  to  him  !" 

lie  took  from  beneath  a  glass  a  piece  of  minute  machin 
ery,  which  he  set  in  the  condensed  light  of  his  lamp,  and, 


364  MOSSKS  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

looking  intently  at  it  through  a  magnify  ing  glass,  proceeded 
to  operate  with  a  delicate  instrument  of  steel.  In  an  in 
stant,  however,  he  fell  back  in  his  chair  and  clasped  his 
hands  with  a  look  of  horror  on  his  face  that  made  its  small 
features  as  impressive  as  those  of  a  giant  would  have  been. 

"  Heaven  !  What  have  I  done  \"  exclaimed  he.  "The 
vapor  !  the  influence  of  that  brute  force  !  It  lias  bewildered 
me  and  obscured  my  perception.  I  have  made  the  very 
stroke — the  fatal  stroke — that  I  have  dreaded  from  the  first. 
It  is  all  over — the  toil  of  months,  the  object  of  my  life.  I 
am  ruined  I" 

And  there  he  sat  in  strange  despair  until  his  lamp  flick 
ered  in  the  socket  and  left  the  Artist  of  the  Beautiful  in 
darkness. 

Thus  it  is  that  idea  which  grows  up  within  the  imagina 
tion  and  appear  so  lovely  to  it,  and  of  a  value  beyond  what 
ever  men  call  valuable,  are  exposed  to  be  shattered  and 
annihilated  by  contact  with  the  practical.  It  is  requisite 
for  the  ideal  artist  to  possess  a  force  of  character  that 
seems  hardly  compatible  with  its  delicacy;  he  must  keep 
his  faith  in  himself  while  the  incredulous  world  assails  him 
with  its  utter  disbelief;  he  must  stand  up  against  mankind 
and  be  his  own  sole  disciple,  both  as  respects  his  genius  and 
the  objects  to  which  it  is  directed. 

For  a  time  Owen  Warland  succumbed  to  this  severe  but 
inevitable  test.  lie  spent  a  few  sluggish  weeks  with  his 
head  so  continually  resting  in  his  hands  that  the  towns 
people  had  scarcely  an  opportunity  to  see  his  countenance. 
When,  at  last,  it  was  again  uplifted  to  the  light  of  day,  a 
cold,  dull,  nameless  change  was  perceptible  upon  it.  In  the 
opinion  of  Peter  Hovenden,  however,  and  that  order  of  sa 
gacious  understandings  who  think  that  life  should  be  regu 
lated,  like  clock-work,  with  leaden  weights,  the  al  teration  was 
entirely  for  the  better.  Owen  now,  indeed,  applied  himself 
to  business  with  dogged  industry.  It  was  marvellous  to  wit 
ness  the  obtuse  gravity  with  which  he  would  inspect  the 
wheels  of  a  great  old  silver  watch,  thereby  delighting  the 
owner,  in  whose  fob  it  had  been  worn  till  he  deemed  it  a 
portion  of  his  own  life,  and  was  accordingly  jealous  of  its 
treatment.  In  consequence  of  the  good  report  thus  acquired, 
Owen  Warland  was  invited  by  the  proper  authorities  to 
regulate  the  clock  in  the  church-steeple.  He  succeeded  so 
admirably  in  this  matter  of  public  interest  that  the  mer- 


THE  ARTIST  OF  THE  BEA  UTIFUL.  365 

chants  gruffly  acknowledged  his  merits  on  'Change,  the 
nurse  whispered  his  praises  as  she  gave  the  potion  in  the 
sick-chamber,  the  lover  blessed  him  at  the  hour  of  appointed 
interview,  and  the  town  in  general  thanked  Owen  for  the 
punctuality  of  dinner-time.  In  a  word,  the  heavy  weight 
upon  his  spirits  kept  every  thing  in  order,  not  merely  within 
his  own  system,  but  wheresoever  the  iron  accents  of  the 
church-clock  were  audible.  Jt  was  a  circumstance,  though 
minute,  yet  characteristic  of  his  present  state,  that  when  em 
ployed  to  engrave  names  or  initials  on  silver  spoons  he  now 
wrote  the  requisite  letters  in  the  plainest  possible  style, 
omitting  a  variety  of  fanciful  flourishes  that  had  heretofore 
distinguished  his  work  in  this  kind. 

One  day  during  the  era  of  this  happy  transformation  old 
Peter  Hovenden  came  to  visit  his  former  apprentice. 

"  Well,  Owen,"  said  he,  "I  am  glad  to  hear  such  good 
accounts  of  you  from  all  quarters,  and  especially  from  the 
town-clock  yonder,  which  speaks  in  your  commendation 
every  hour  of  the  twenty-four.  Only  get  rid  altogether  of 
your  nonsensical  trash  about  the  Beautiful — which  I  nor 
nobody  else,  nor  yourself  to  boot,  could  never  understand — 
only  free  yourself  of  that,  and  your  success  in  life  is  as  sure 
as  daylight.  Why,  if  you  go  on  in  this  way,  I  should  even 
venture  to  let  you  doctor  this  precious  old  watch  of  mine; 
though,  except  my  daughter  Annie,  1  have  nothing  else  so 
valuable  in  the  world." 

<(  I  should  hardly  dare  touch  it,  sir,"  replied  Owen,  in  a 
depressed  tone,  for  he  was  weighed  down  by  his  old 
master's  presence. 

"In  time,"  said  the  latter,  "  in  time,  you  will  be  capa 
ble  of  it." 

The  old  watchmaker,  with  the  freedom  naturally  conse 
quent  on  his  former  authority,  went  on  inspecting  the  work 
which  Owen  had  in  hand  at  the  moment,  together  with 
other  matters  that  were  in  progress.  The  artist,  meanwhile, 
could  scarcely  lift  his  head.  There  wasnothingso  antipodal 
to  his  nature  as  this  man's  cold,  unimaginative  sagacity, 
by  contact  with  which  everything  was  converted  into  a 
dream  except  the  densest  matter  of  the  physical  world. 
Owen  groaned  in  spirit  and  prayed  fervently  to  be  delivered 
from  him. 

"  But  what  is  this?"  cried  Peter  Hovenden,  abruptly, 
taking  up  a  dusty  bell-glass  beneath  which  appeared  a 


366  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

mechanical  something  as  delicate  and  minute  as  the  system 
of  a  butterfly's  anatomy.  "What  have  we  here!  Owen, 
Owen!  there  is  witchcraft  in  these  little  chains  and  wheels 
and  paddles.  See!  with  one  pinch  of  my  finger  and  thumb 
I  am  going  to  deliver  you  from  all  future  peril." 

"  For  heaven's  sake,"  screamed  Owen  Warland,  springing 
up  with  wonderful  energy,  "as  you  would  not  drive  me 
mad,  do  not  touch  it!  The  slightest  pressure  of  your 
finger  would  ruin  me  forever." 

"Aha,  young  man!  And  is  it  so  ?"  said  the  old  watch 
maker,  looking  at  him  with  just  enough  of  penetration  to 
torture  Owen's  soul  with  the  bitterness  of  worldly  criticism. 
"Well,  take  your  own  course.  But  I  warn  you  again  that 
in  this  small  piece  of  mechanism  lives  your  evil  spirit. 
Shall  I  exorcise  him?" 

"  You  are  my  evil  spirit,"  answered  Owen,  much  excited 
—"you  and  the  hard,  coarse  world.  The  leaden  thoughts 
and  the  despondency  that  you  fling  upon  me  are  my  clogs, 
else  I  should  long  ago  have  achieved  the  task  that  I  was 
created  for." 

Peter  Hovenden  shook  his  head  with  the  mixture  of  con 
tempt  and  indignation  which  mankind,  of  whom  he  was 
partly  a  representative,  deem  themselves  entitled  to  feel 
toward  all  simpletons  who  seek  other  prizes  than  the  dusty 
one  along  the  highway.  He  then  took  his  leave  with  an 
uplifted  finger  and  a  sneer  upon  his  face  that  haunted  the 
artist's  dreams  for  many  a  night  afterward.  At  the  time 
of  his  old  master's  visit  Owen  was  probably  on  the  point  of 
taking  up  the  relinquished  task,  but  by  this  sinister  event 
he  was  thrown  back  into  the  state  whence  he  had  been 
slowly  emerging. 

But  the  innate  tendency  of  his  soul  had  only  been  accu 
mulating  fresh  vigor  during  its  apparent  sluggishness.  As 
the  summer  advanced  he  almost  totally  relinquished  his 
business,  and  permitted  Father  Time,  so  far  as  the  old 
gentleman  was  represented  by  the  clocks  and  watches  under 
his  control,  to  stray  at  random  through  human  life,  making 
infinite  confusion  among  the  train  of  bewildered  hours. 
He  wasted  the  sunshine,  as  people  said,  in  wandering 
through  the  woods  and  fields  and  along  the  banks  of 
streams.  There,  like  a  child,  he  found  amusement  in 
chasing  butterflies  or  watching  the  motions  of  water-insects 
There  was  something  truly  mysterious  in  the  intentness 


THE  ARTIST  OF  TEE  BEA  UTIFUL.  367 

with  which  he  contemplated  these  living  playthings  as  they 
sported  on  the  breeze,  or  examined  the  structure  of  an  im 
perial  insect  whom  he  had  imprisoned.  The  chase  of  but 
terflies  was  an  apt  emblem  of  the  ideal  pursuit  in  which  he 
had  spent  so  many  golden  hours.  But  would  the  beautiful 
idea  ever  be  yielded  to  his  hand,  like  the  butterfly  that 
symbolized  it?  Sweet,  doubtless,  were  these  days,  and  con 
genial  to  the  artist's  soul.  They  were  full  of  bright  con 
ceptions  which  gleamed  through  his  intellectual  world  as 
the  butterflies  gleamed  through  the  outward  atmosphere, 
and  were  real  to  him  for  the  instant  without  the  toil  and 
perplexity  and  many  disappointments  of  attempting  to 
make  them  visible  to  the  sensual  eye.  Alas  that  the  artist, 
whether  in  poetry  or  whatever  other  material,  may  not 
content  himself  with  the  inward  enjoyment  of  the  Beauti 
ful,  but  must  chase  the  flitting  mystery  beyond  the  verge 
of  his  ethereal  domain  and  crush  its  frail  being  in  seizing 
it  with  a  material  grasp!  Owen  AVarland  felt  the  impulse 
to  give  external  reality  to  his  ideas  as  irresistibly  as  any  of 
the  poets  or  painters  who  have  arrayed  the  world  in  a  dim 
mer  and  fainter  beauty  imperfectly  copied  from  the  rich 
ness  of  their  visions. 

The  night  was  now  his  time  for  the  slow  progress  of  re 
creating  the  one  idea  to  which  all  his  intellectual  activity 
referred  itself.  Always  at  the  approach  of  dusk  he  stole 
into  the  town,  locked  himself  within  his  shop,  and  wrought 
with  patient  delicacy  of  touch  for  many  hours.  Sometimes 
he  was  startled  by  the  rap  of  the  watchman,  who  when  all 
the  world  should  be  asleep  had  caught  the  gleam  of  lamp 
light  through  the  crevices  of  Owen  Warland's  shutters. 
Daylight,  to  the  morbid  sensibility  of  his  mind,  seemed 
to  have  an  intrusiveness  that  interfered  with  his  pursuits. 
On  cloudy  and  inclement  days,  therefore,  he  sat  with  his 
head  upon  his  hands,  muffling,  as  it  were,  his  sensitive 
brain  in  a  mist  of  indefinite  musings;  for  it  was  a  relief  to 
escape  from  the  sharp  distinctness  with  which  he  was  com 
pelled  to  shape  out  his  thoughts  during  his  nightly  toil. 

From  one  of  these  fits  of  torpor  he  was  aroused  by  the 
entrance  of  Annie  Hovenden,  who  came  into  the  shop  with 
the  freedom  of  a  customer,  and  also  with  something  of  the 
familiarity  of  a  childish  friend.  She  had  worn  a  hole 
through  her  silver  thimble,  and  wanted  Owen  to  repair  it. 

"  But  I  don't  know  whether  you  will  condescend  to  such 


368  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

a  task/'  said  she,  laughing,  "  now  that  you  are  so  taken  up 
with  the  notion  of  putting  spirit  into  machinery." 

"  Whore  did  you  get  that  idea,  Annie?"  said  Owen, 
starting  in  surprise. 

"Oh,  out  of  my  own  head,"  answered  she,  "and  from 
something  that  I  heard  you  say  long  ago,  when  you  were 
but  a  boy  and  I  a  little  child.  But  corne!  will  you  mend 
this  poor  thimble  of  mine?" 

"Anything  for  your  sake,  Annie,"  said  Owen  Warland, 
"anything,  even  were  it  to  work  at  Robert  Danforth/s 
forge." 

"And  that  would  be  a  pretty  sight!"  retorted  Annie, 
glancing  with  imperceptible  slightness  at  the  artist's  small 
and  slender  frame.  "  Well,  here  is  the  thimble." 

"  But  that  is  a  strange  idea  of  yours,"  said  Owen,  "  about 
the  spirit ualization  of  matter." 

And  then  the  thought  stole  into  his  mind  that  this 
young  girl  possessed  the  gift  to  comprehend  him  better 
than  all  the  world  besides.  And  what  a  help  and  strength 
would  it  be  to  him  in  his  lonely  toil  if  he  could  gain  the 
sympathy  of  the  only  being  whom  he  loved !  To  persons 
whose  pursuits  are  isolated  from  the  common  business  of 
life — who  are  either  in  advance  of  mankind  or  apart  from 
it — there  often  comes  a  sensation  of  moral  cold  that  makes 
the  spirit  shiver  as  if  it  had  reached  the  frozen  solitudes 
around  the  pole.  What  the  prophet,  the  poet,  the  re 
former,  the  criminal,  or  any  other  man  with  human  yearn 
ings,  but  separated  from  the  multitude  by  a  peculiar  lot, 
might  feel,  poor  Owen  Warland  felt. 

"  Annie,"  cried  he,  growing  pale  as  death  at  the  thought, 
"how  gladly  would  I  tell  you  the  secret  of  my  pursuit! 
You,  methinks,  would  estimate  it  rightly;  you,  1  know, 
would  hear  it  with  a  reverence  that  I  must  not  expect  from 
the  harsh,  material  world." 

"Would  I  not?  To  be  sure  I  would!"  replied  Annie 
Hovenden,  lightly  laughing.  "Come!  explain  to  me 
quickly  what  is  the  meaning  of  this  little  whirligig,  so 
delicately  wrought  that  it  might  he  a  plaything  for  Queen 
Mab.  See!  I  will  put  it  in  motion." 

"Hold!"  exclaimed  Owen;  "hold!" 

Annie  had  but  given  the  slightest  possible  touch  with 
the  point  of  a  needle  to  the  same  minute  portion  of  compli 
cated  machinery  which  has  been  more  than  once  men- 


THE  ARTIST  OF  THE  BEA  UTIFUL.  369 

tioned,  when  the  artist  seized  her  by  the  wrist  with  a  force 
that  made  her  scream  aloud.  She  was  affrighted  at  the 
convulsion  of  intense  rage  and  anguish  that  writhed  across 
his  features.  The  next  instant  he  let  his  head  sink  upon 
his  hands. 

"Go,  Annie!"  murmured  he;  "I  have  deceived  myself, 
and  must  suffer  for  it.  I  yearned  for  sympathy,  and 
thought  and  fancied  and  dreamed  that  you  might  give  it 
me.  But  you  lack  the  talisman,  Annie,  that  should  admit 
you  into  my  secrets.  That  touch  has  undone  the  toil  of 
months  and  the  thought  of  a  lifetime.  It  was  not  your 
fault,  Annie,  but  you  have  ruined  me." 

Poor  Owen  Warland!  He  had  indeed  erred,  yet  par 
donably;  for  if  any  human  spirit  could  have  sufficiently 
reverenced  the  processes  so  sacred  in  his  eyes,  it  must  have 
been  a  woman's.  Even  Annie  Hovenden,  possibly,  might 
not  have  disappointed  him  had  she  been  enlightened  by 
the  deep  intelligence  of  love. 

The  artist  spent  the  ensuing  winter  in  a  way  that  satis 
fied  any  persons  who  had  hitherto  retained  a  hopeful  opin 
ion  of  him  that  he  was,  in  truth,  irrevocably  doomed  to 
inutility  as  regarded  the  world  and  to  an  evil  destiny  on 
his  own  part.  The  decease  of  a  relative  had  put  him  in 
possession  of  a  small  inheritance.  Thus  freed  from  the 
necessity  of  toil,  and  having  lost  the  steadfast  influence  of 
a  great  purpose — great,  at  least,  to  him — he  abandoned 
himself  to  habits  from  which,  it  might  have  been  supposed, 
the  mere  delicacy  of  his  organization  would  have  availed 
to  secure  him.  But  when  the  ethereal  portion  of  a  man 
of  genius  is  obscured,  the  earthly  part  assumes  an  influence 
the  more  uncontrollable,  because  the  character  is  now 
thrown  off  the  balance  to  which  Providence  had  so  nicely 
adjusted  it,  and  which  in  coarser  natures  is  adjusted  by 
some  other  method.  Owen  Warland  made  proof  of  what 
ever  show  of  bliss  may  be  found  in  riot.  He  looked  at  the 
world  through  the  golden  medium  of  wine,  and  contem 
plated  the  visions  that  bubble  up  so  ga\Tly  around  the  brim 
of  the  glass,  and  that  people  the  air  with  shapes  of 
pleasant  madness  which  so  soon  grow  ghostly  and  forlorn. 
Even  when  this  dismal  and  inevitable  change  had  taken 
place,  the  young  man  might  still  have  continued  to  quaif 
the  cup  of  enchantments,  though  its  vapor  did  but  shroud 
life  in  gloom  and  fill  the  gloom  witli  snectres  that  mocked 


370  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

at  him.  There  was  a  certain  irksomeness  of  spirit  which, 
being  real  and  the  deepest  sensation  of  which  the  artist  was 
now  conscious,  was  more  intolerable  than  any  fantastic 
miseries  and  horrors  that  the  abuse  of  the  wine  could  sum 
mon  up.  In  the  latter  case  he  could  remember,  even  out 
of  the  midst  of  his  trouble,  that  all  was  but  a  delusion  ;  in 
the  former,  the  heavy  anguish  was  his  actual  life. 

From  this  perilous  state  he  was  redeemed  by  an  incident 
which  more  than  one  person  witnessed,  but  of  which  the 
shrewdest  could  not  explain  nor  conjecture  the  operation 
on  Owen  Warland's  mind.  It  was  very  simple.  On  a 
warm  afternoon  of  spring,  as  the  artist  sat  among  his 
riotous  companions  with  a  glass  of  wine  before  him  a 
splendid  butterfly  flew  in  at  the  open  window  and  fluttered 
about  his  head. 

"  Ah  !"  exclaimed  Owen,  who  had  drank  freely  ;  "  are 
you  alive  again,  child  of  the  sun  and  playmate  of  the  sum 
mer  breeze,  after  your  dismal  winter's  nap  ?  Then  it  is 
time  for  me  to  be  at  work ;  and,  leaving  his  unemptied 
glass  upon  the  table,  he  departed,  and  was  never  known  to 
sip  another  drop  of  wine. 

And  now  again  he  resumed  his  wanderings  in  the  woods 
and  fields.  It  might  be  fancied  that  the  bright  butterfly 
which  had  come  so  spirit  like  into  the  window  as  Owen  sat 
with  the  rude  revellers  was  indeed  a  spirit  commissioned  to 
recall  him  to  the  pure  ideal  life  that  had  so  etherealized 
him  among  men.  It  might  be  fancied  that  he  went  forth 
to  seek  this  spirit  in  its  sunny  haunts,  for  still,  as  in  the 
summer-time  gone  by,  he  was  seen  to  steal  gently  up 
wherever  a  butterfly  had  alighted  and  lose  himself  in  con 
templation  of  it.  When  it  took  flight,  his  eyes  followed 
the  winged  vision  as  if  its  airy  track  would  show  the  path 
to  heaven.  But  what  could  be  the  purpose  of  the  unsea 
sonable  toil,  which  was  again  resumed,  as  the  watchman 
knew  by  the  lines  of  lamplight  through  the  crevices  of 
Owen  Warland's  shutters  ?  The  townspeople  had  one  com 
prehensive  explanation  of  all  these  singularities  :  Owen 
\\arland  had  gone  mad.  How  universally  efficacious — 
how  satisfactory,  too,  and  soothing  to  the  injured  sensibility 
of  narrowness  and  dullness — is  this  easy  method  of  account 
ing  for  whatever  lies  beyond  the  world's  most  ordinary 
scope  !  From  St.  Paul's  days  down  to  our  poor  little 
Artist  of  the  Beautiful  the  same  talisman  had  been  applied 


THE  ARTIST  OF  THE  BEA  UTIFUL.  371 

to  the  elucidation  of  all  mysteries  in  the  words  or  deeds 
of  men  who  spoke  or  acted  too  wisely  or  too  well.  In 
Owen  Wai-land's  case  the  judgment  of  his  townspeople 
may  have  been  correct  ;  perhaps  he  was  mad.  The  lack 
of  sympathy — that  contrast  between  himself  and  his  neigh 
bors  which  took  away  the  restraint  of  example — was  enough 
to  make  him  so.  Or  possibly  he  had  caught  just  so  much 
of  ethereal  radiance  as  served  to  bewilder  him,  in  an  earthly 
sense,  by  its  intermixture  with  the  common  daylight. 

One  evening,  when  the  artist  had  returned  from  a  cus 
tomary  ramble,  and  had  just  thrown  the  luster  of  his  lamp 
on  the  delicate  piece  of  work  so  often  interrupted,  but  still 
taken  up  again,  as  if  his  fate  were  embodied  in  its  mechan 
ism,  he  was  surprised  by  the  entrance  of  old  Peter  Hoven- 
den.  Owen  never  met  this  man  without  a  shrinking  of  the 
heart.  Of  all  the  world,  he  was  most  terrible,  by  reason 
of  a  keen  understanding  which  was  so  distinctly  what  it 
did  see  and  disbelieved  so  uncompromisingly  in  what  it 
could  not  see.  On  this  occasion  the  old  watchmaker  had 
merely  a  gracious  word  or  two  to  say. 

"  Owen,  my  lad,"  said  he,  "  we  must  see  you  at  my  house 
to-morrow  night." 

The  artist  began  to  mutter  some  excuse. 

"  Oh,  but  it  must  be  so,"  quoth  Peter  Hovenden,  (<  for 
the  sake  of  the  days  when  you  were  one  of  the  household. 
What,  my  boy!  don't  you  know  that  my  daughter  Annie 
is  engaged  to  Robert  Danforth?  We  are  making  an  enter 
tainment  in  our  humble  way  to  celebrate  the  event." 

"Ah!"  said  Owen. 

That  little  monosyllable  was  all  he  uttered;  its  tone 
seemed  cold  and  unconcerned  to  an  ear  like  Peter  Hoven- 
deii's,  and  yet  there  was  in  it  the  stilled  outcry  of  the  poor 
artist's  heart,  which  he  compressed  within  him  like  a  man 
holding  down  an  evil  spirit.  One  slight  outbreak,  how 
ever,  imperceptible  to  the  old  watchmaker,  he  allowed 
himself.  Raising  the  instrument  with  which  he  was  about 
to  begin  his  work,  he  let  it  fall  upon  the  little  system  of 
machinery  that  had  anew  cost  him  months  of  thought  and 
toil.  It  was  shattered  by  the  stroke. 

Owen  Warland's  story  would  have  been  no  tolerable  rep 
resentation  of  the  troubled  life  of  those  who  strive  to 
create  the  Beautiful  if,  amid  all  other  thwarting  influences, 
love  had  not  interposed  to  steal  the  cunning  from  his  hand. 


372  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

Outwardly  he  had  been  no  ardent  or  enterprising  lover — 
the  career  of  his  passion  had  confined  its  tumults  and  vicis 
situdes  so  entirely  within  the  artist's  imagination  that 
Annie  herself  had  scarcely  more  than  a  woman's  intuitive 
perception  of  it — but,,  in  Owen's  view,  it  covered  the  whole 
field  of  his  life.  Forgetful  of  the  time  when  she  had 
shown  herself  incapable  of  any  deep  response,  he  had  per 
sisted  in  connecting  all  his  dreams  of  artistical  success 
with  Annie's  image;  she  was  the  visible  shape  in  which 
the  spiritual  power  that  he  worshiped,  and  on  whose  altar 
he  hoped  to  lay  a  not  unworthy  offering,  was  made  mani 
fest  to  him.  Of  course  he  had  deceived  himself;  there 
were  no  such  attributes  in  Annie  Hovenden  as  his  imagina 
tion  had  endowed  her  with.  She,  in  the  aspect  which  she 
wore  to  his  inward  vision,  was  as  much  a  creation  of  his 
own  as  the  mysterious  piece  of  mechanism  would  be  were 
it  ever  realized.  Had  he  become  convinced  of  his  mistake 
through  the  medium  of  successful  love;  had  he  won  Annie 
to  his  bosom  and  there  beheld  her  fade  from  angel  into 
ordinary  woman,  the  disappointment  might  have  driven 
him  back  with  concentrated  energy  upon  his  sole  remain 
ing  object.  On  the  other  hand,  had  he  found  Annie  what 
he  fancied,  his  lot  would  have  been  so  rich  in  beauty  that 
out  of  its  mere  redundancy  he  might  have  wrought  the 
Beautiful  into  many  a  worthier  type  than  he  had  toiled 
for.  But  the  guise  in  which  sorrow  came  to  him,  the 
sense  that  the  angel  of  his  life  had  been  snatched  away 
and  given  to  a  rude  man  of  earth  and  iron,  who  could 
neither  need  nor  appreciate  her  ministrations,  this  was  the 
very  perversity  of  fate  that  makes  human  existence  appear 
too  absurd  and  contradictory  to  be  the  scene  of  one  other 
hope  or  one  other  fear.  There  was  nothing  left  for 
Owen  Warland  but  to  sit  down  like  a  man  that  had  been 
stunned. 

He  went  through  a  fit  of  illness.  After  his  recovery  his 
small  and  slender  frame  assumed  an  obtuser  garniture  of 
flesh  than  it  had  ever  before  worn.  His  thin  cheeks  be 
came  round;  his  delicate  little  hand,  so  spiritually  fash 
ioned  to  achieve  fairy  task-work,  grew  plumper  than  the 
hand  of  a  thriving  infant.  His  aspect  had  a  childishness 
such  as  might  have  induced  a  stranger  to  pat  him  on  the 
head,  pausing,  however,  in  the  act  to  wonder  what  man 
ner  of  child  was  here,  It  was  as  if  the  spirit  had  gone  out 


IRE  ARTIST  OF  THE  BEA  UT1FUL.  373 

of  him,  leaving  the  body  to  flourish  in  a  sort  of  vegetable 
existence.  Not  that  Owen  Warland  was  idiotic.  He  could 
talk,  and  not  irrationally.  Somewhat  of  a  babbler,  in 
deed,  did  people  begin  to  think  him,  for  he  was  apt  to  dis 
course  at  wearisome  length  of  marvels  of  mechanism  that 
he  had  read  about  in  books,  but  which  he  had  learned  to 
consider  as  absolutely  fabulous.  Among  them  he  enumer 
ated  the  man  of  brass,  constructed  by  Albertus  Magnus, 
and  the  brazen  head  of  Friar  Bacon;  and,  coming  down 
to  later  times,  the  automata  of  a  little  coach  and  horses 
which  it  was  pretended  had  been  manufactured  for  the 
dauphin  of  France,  together  with  an  insect  that  buzzed 
about  the  ear  like  a  living  fly,  and  yet  was  but  a  contriv 
ance  of  minute  steel  springs.  There  was  a  story,  too,  of 
a  duck  that  waddled  and  quacked  and  ate,  though  had 
any  honest  citizen  purchased  it  for  dinner  he  would  have 
found  himself  cheated  with  the  mere  mechanical  appari 
tion  of  a  duck. 

"  But  all  these  accounts,"  said  Owen  Warland,  "I  am 
now  satisfied  are  mere  impositions." 

Then,  in  a  mysterious  way,  he  would  confess  that  he 
once  thought  differently.  In  his  idle  and  dreamy  days  he 
had  considered  it  possible,  in  a  certain  sense,  to  spiritualize 
machinery,  and  to  combine  with  the  new  species  of  life  and 
motion  thus  produced  a  beauty  that;  should  attain  to  the 
ideal  which  Nature  has  proposed  to  herself  in  all  her  creat 
ures,  but  has  never  taken  pains  to  realize.  He  seemed, 
however,  to  retain  no  very  distinct  perception  either  of  the 
process  of  achieving  this  object  or  of  the  design  itself. 

"  I  have  thrown  it  all  aside  now,"  he  would  say.  "  It  was 
a  dream  such  as  young  men  are  always  mystifying  them 
selves  with.  Now  that  I  have  acquired  a  little  common 
sense,  it  makes  me  laugh  to  think  of  it." 

Poor,  poor,  and  fallen  Owen  Warland!  These  were  the 
symptoms  that  he  had  ceased  to  be  an  inhabitant  of  the 
better  sphere  that  lies  unseen  around  us.  He  had  lost  his 
faith  in  the  invisible,  and  now  prided  himself,  as  such  un 
fortunates  invariably  do,  in  the  wisdom  which  rejected  much 
that  even  his  eye  could  see,  and  trusted  confidently  in  noth 
ing  but  what  his  hand  could  touch.  This  is  the  calamity 
of  men  whose  spiritual  part  dies  out  of  them  and  leaves  the 
grosser  understanding  to  assimilate  them  more  and  more  to 
the  things  of  which  alone  it  can  take  cognizance.  But  in 


;j;4  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

Owen  Warland  the  spirit  was  not  dead  nor  past  away:  it 
only  slept. 

How  it  awoke  again  is  not  recorded.  Perhaps  the  torpid 
slumber  was  broken  by  a  convulsive  pain;  perhaps,  as  in  a 
former  instance,  the  butterfly  came  and  hovered  about  his 
head,  and  reinspired  him,  as  indeed,  this  creature  of  the 
sunshine  had  always  a  mysterious  mission  for  the  artist — re- 
inspired  him  with  the  former  purpose  of  his  life.  Whether 
it  were  pain  or  happiness  that  thrilled  through  his  veins,,  his 
first  impulse  was  to  thank  Heaven  for  rendering  him  again 
the  being  of  thought,  imagination  and  keenest  sensibility 
that  he  had  long  ceased  to  be. 

"  Now  for  my  task/'  said  he.  "  Never  did  I  feel  such 
strength  for  it  as  now." 

Yet,  strong  as  he  felt  himself,  he  was  incited  to  toil  the 
more  diligently  by  an  anxiety  lest  death  should  surprise 
him  in  the  midst  of  his  labors.  This  anxiety,  perhaps,  is 
common  to  all  men  who  set  their  hearts  upon  anything  so 
high,  in  their  own  view  of  it,  that  life  becomes  of  importance 
only  as  conditional  to  its  accomplishment.  So  long  as  we 
love  life  for  itself  we  seldom  dread  the  losing  it;  when  we 
desire  life  for  the  attainment  of  an  object,  we  recognize  the 
frailty  of  its  texture.  But  side  by  side  with  this  sense  of 
insecurity  there  is  a  vital  faith  in  our  invulnerability  to  the 
shaft  of  death  while  engaged  in  any  task  that  seems  assigned 
by  Providence  as  our  proper  thing  to  do,  and  which  the 
world  would  have  cause  to  mourn  for  should  we  leave  it 
unaccomplished.  Can  the  philosopher  big  with  the  inspira 
tion  of  an  idea  that  is  to  reform  mankind  believe  that  he  is 
to  be  beckoned  from  this  sensible  existence  at  the  very  in 
stant  when  he  is  mustering  his  breath  to  speak  the  word  of 
light?  Should  he  perish  so,  the  weary  ages  may  pass  away 
— the  world's  whole  life-sand  may  fall  drop  by  drop — be 
fore  another  intellect  is  prepared  to  develop  the  truth  that 
might  have  been  uttered  then.  But  history  affords  many 
an  example  where  the  most  precious  spirit,  at  any  particular 
epoch  manifested  in  human  shape,  has  gone  hence  untimely 
without  space  allowed  him,  so  far  as  mortal  judgment  could 
discern,  to  perform  his  mission  on  the  earth.  The  prophet 
dies,  and  the  man  of  torpid  heart  and  sluggish  brain  lives 
on.  The  poet  leaves  his  song  half  sung  or  finishes  it  beyond 
the  scope  of  mortal  ears  in  a  celestial  choir.  The  painter — 
as  Allston  did — leaves  half  his  conception  on  the  canvas,  to 


THE  ARTIST  OF  THE  BEA  UTIFUL.  375 

sadden  us  with  its  imperfect  beauty  and  goes  to  picture 
forth  the  whole — if  it  be  no  irreverence  to  say  so — in  the 
hues  of  heaven.  But,  rather,  such  incomplete  designs  of 
this  life  will  be  perfected  nowhere.  This  so  frequent  abor 
tion  of  mail's  dearest  projects  must  betaken  as  a  proof  that 
the  deeds  of  earth,  however  etherealized  by  piety  or  genius,, 
are  without  value  except  as  exercises  and  manifestations  of 
the  spirit.  In  heaven  all  ordinary  thought  is  higher  and 
more  melodious  than  Milton's  song.  Then  would  he  add 
another  verse  to  any  strain  that  he  had  left  unfinished 
here? 

But  to  return  to  Owen  Warland.  It  was  his  fortune, 
good  or  ill,  to  achieve  the  purpose  of  his  life.  Pass  we 
over  a  long  space  of  intense  thought,  yearning  effort, 
minute  toil  and  wasting  anxiety,  succeeded  by  an  instant 
of  solitary  triumph;  let  all  this  be  imagined  and  then  be 
hold  the  artist  on  a  winter  evening  seeking  admittance  to 
Kobert  Danforth's  fireside  circle.  There  lie  found  the  man 
of  iron  with  his  massive  substance  thoroughly  warmed  and 
attempered  by  domestic  influences.  And  there  was  Annie, 
too,  now  transformed  into  a  matron  with  much  of  her  hus 
band's  plain  and  sturdy  nature,  but  imbued,  as  Owen  War- 
land  still  believed,  with  a  finer  grace  that  might  enable  her 
to  be  the  interpreter  between  strength  and  beauty.  It  hap 
pened,  likewise,  that  old  Peter  Hovenden  was  a  guest  this 
evening  at  his  daughter's  fireside  and  it  was  his  well-re 
membered  expression  of  keen,  cold  criticism  that  first  en 
countered  the  artist's  glance. 

"  My  old  friend  Owen!"  cried  Robert  Danforth,  starting 
up  and  compressing  the  artist's  delicate  fingers  within  a 
hand  that  was  accustomed  to  grip  bars  of  iron.  "  This  is 
kind  and  neighborly  to  come  to  us  at  last!  I  was  afraid 
your  perpetual  motion  had  bewitched  you  out  of  the  re 
membrance  of  old  times." 

"We  are  glad  to  see  you!"  said  Annie,  while  a  blush 
reddened  her  matronly  cheek.  "  It  was  not  like  a  friend 
to  stay  from  us  so  long." 

"  Well,  Owen,"  inquired  the  old  watchmaker,  as  his  first 
greeting,  "  how  comes  on  the  Beautiful?  Have  you  created 
it  at  last?" 

The  artist  did  not  immediately  reply,  being  startled  by 
the  apparition  of  a  young  child  of  strength  that  was  tum 
bling  about  on  the  carpet,  a  little  personage  who  had  come 


376  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

mysteriously  out  of  the  infinite,  but  with  something  so 
sturdy  and  real  in  his  composition  that  he  seemed  molded 
out  of  the  densest  substance  which  earth  could  supply. 
This  hopeful  infant  crawled  toward  the  new-comer,  and, 
setting  himself  on  end — as  Robert  Danforth  expressed  the 
posture — stared  at  Owen  with  a  look  of  such  sagacious  ob 
servation  that  the  mother  could  not  help  exchanging  a 
proud  glance  with  her  husband.  But  the  artist  was  dis 
turbed  by  the  child's  look,  as  imagining  a  resemblance  be 
tween  it  and  Peter  Hovenden's  habitual  expression.  He 
could  have  fancied  that  the  old  watchmaker  was  com 
pressed  into  this  baby  shape  and  looking  out  of  those  baby- 
eyes  and  repeating,  as  he  now  did,  the  malicious  question: 

"  The  Beautiful,  Owen!  How  comes  on  the  Beautiful? 
Have  you  succeeded  in  creating  the  Beautiful?" 

"  I  have  succeeded,"  replied  the  artist,  with  a  momentary 
light  of  triumph  in  his  eyes  and  a  smile  of  sunshine,  yet 
steeped  in  such  depth  of  thought  that  it  was  almost  sad  ness. 
"  Yes,  my  friends,  it  is  the  truth.  I  have  succeeded." 

"Indeed!"  cried  Annie,  with  a  look  of  maiden  mirthful- 
ness  peeping  out  of  her  face  again.  "And  is  it  lawful  now 
to  inquire  what  the  secret  is?" 

"  Surely;  it  is  to  disclose  it  that  I  have  come,"  answered 
Owen  Warland.  "  You  shall  know  and  see  and  touch  and 
possess  the  secret.  For,  Annie — if  by  that  name  I  may 
still  address  the  friend  of  my  boyish  years — Annie,  it  is  for 
your  bridal-gift  that  I  have  wrought  this  spiritualized 
mechanism,  this  harmony  of  motion,  this  mystery  of 
beauty.  It  comes  late,  indeed,  but  it  is  as  we  go  onward 
in  life,  when  objects  begin  to  lose  their  freshness  of  hue 
and  our  souls  their  delicacy  of  perception,  that  the  spirit 
of  beauty  is  most  needed.  If — forgive  me,  Annie — if  you 
know  how  to  value  this  gift,  it  can  never  come  too  Iate0" 

lie  produced,  as  he  spoke,  what  seemed  a  jewel-box.  It 
was  carved  richly  out  of  ebony  by  his  own  hand,  and  inlaid 
with  a  fanciful  tracery  of  pearl  representing  a  boy  in  pur 
suit  of  a  butterfly  which  elsewhere  had  become  a  winged 
spirit  and  was  flying  heavenward,  while  the  boy,  or  youth, 
had  found  such  efficacy  in  his  strong  desire  that  he 
ascended  from  earth  to  cloud  and  from  cloud  to  celestial 
atmosphere  to  win  the  Beautiful.  This  case  of  ebony  the 
artist  opened,  and  bade  Annie  place  her  finger  on  its  edge. 
She  did  so,  but  almost  screamed  as  a  butterfly  fluttered 


THE  A R  TIST  OF  THE  B  EA  UTTFUL.  377 

forth,  and  alighting  on  her  finger's  tip,  sat  waving  the 
ample  magnificence  of  its  purple-and-gold -speckled  wings 
as  if  in  prelude  to  a  fight.  It  is  impossible  to  express  by 
words  the  glory,  the  splendor,  the  delicate  gorgeousness, 
which  were  softened  into  the  beauty  of  this  object.  Nature's 
ideal  butterfly  was  here  realized  in  all  its  perfection — not 
in  the  pattern  of  such  faded  insects  as  flit  among  earthly 
flowers,  but  of  those  which  hover  across  the  meads  of 
Paradise  for  child-angels  and  the  spirits  of  departed  infants 
to  disport  themselves  with.  The  rich  down  was  visible 
upon  its  wings;  the  luster  of  its  eyes  seemed  instinct  with 
spirit.  The  firelight  glimmered  around  this  wonder,  the 
candles  gleamed  upon  it,  but  it  glistened  apparently  by  its 
own  radiance,  and  illuminated  the  finger  and  outstretched 
hand  on  which  it  rested  with  a  white  gleam  like  that  of 
precious  stones.  In  its  perfect  beauty  the  consideration  of 
size  was  entirely  lost.  Had  its  wings  over-reached  the 
firmanent,  the  mind  could  not  have  been  more  filled  or 
satisfied. 

"  Beautiful!  beautiful!"  exclaimed  Annie.  "Is  it  alive? 
Is  it  alive?'' 

"'  Alive?'  To  be  sure  it  is,"  answered  her  husband. 
"  Do  you  suppose  any  mortal  has  skill  enough  to  make  a 
butterfly,  or  would  put  himself  to  the  trouble  of  making 
one,  when  any  child  may  catch  a  score  of  them  in  a  sum 
mer's  afternoon?  'Alive?'  Certainly!  But  this  pretty 
box  is  undoubtedly  of  our  friend  Owen's  manufacture,  and 
really  it  does  him  credit." 

At  this  moment  the  butterfly  waved  its  wings  anew  with 
a  motion  so  absolutely  lifelike  that  Annie  was  startled, 
and  even  awe-stricken,  for,  in  spite  of  her  husband's  opin 
ion,  she  could  not  satisfy  herself  whether  it  was  indeed  a 
living  creature  or  a  piece  of  wondrous  mechanism. 

"Is  it  alive?"  she  repeated,  more  earnestly  than  before. 

"Judge  for  yourself/' said  Owen  Wai-land,  who  stood 
gazing  in  her  face  with  fixed  attention. 

The  butterfly  now  flung  itself  upon  the  air,  fluttered 
round  Annie's  head  and  soared  into  a  distant  region  of  the 
parlor,  still  making  itself  perceptible  to  sight  by  the  starry 
gleam  in  which  the  motion  of  its  wings  enveloped  it.  The 
infant,  on  the  floor,  followed  its  course  with  his  sagacious 
little  eyes.  After  flying  about  the  room,  it  returned  in  a 
spiral  curve  and  settled  again  on  Annie's  finger. 


378  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"But  is  it  alive?"  exclaimed  she,  again;  and  the  finger 
on  which  the  gorgeous  mystery  had  alighted  was  so  tremu 
lous  that  the  butterfly  was  forced  to  balance  himself  with 
his  wings.  "  Tell  me  if  it  be  alive,  or  whether  you  created 
it." 

"Wherefore  ask  who  created  it,  so  it  be  beautiful?"  re 
plied  Owen  Warland.  "'Alive?'  Yes,  Annie;  it  may 
well  be  said  to  possess  life,  for  it  has  absorbed  my  own  be 
ing  into  itself,  and  in  the  secret  of  that  butterfly,  and  in 
its  beauty — which  is  not  merely  outward,  but  deep  as  its 
whole  system — is  represented  the  intellect,  the  imagination, 
the  sensibility,  the  soul,  of  an  Artist  of  the  Beautiful.  Yes, 
I  created  it.  But " — and  here  his  countenance  somewhat 
changed — "  this  butterfly  is  not  now  to  me  what  it  was 
when  I  beheld  it  afar  oif  in  the  day-dreams  of  my 
youth." 

"  Be  it  what  it  may,  it  is  a  pretty  plaything,"  said  the 
blacksmith,  grinning  with  childlike  delight.  "I  wonder 
whether  it  would  condescend  to  alight  on  such  a  great 
clumsy  finger  as  mine?  Hold  it  hither,  Annie." 

By  the  artist's  direction,  Annie  touched  her  finger's  tip 
to  that  of  her  husband  and  after  a  momentary  delay  the 
butterfly  fluttered  from  one  to  the  other.  It  preluded  a 
second  flight  by  a  similar  yet  not  precisely  the  same  waving 
of  wings  as  in  the  first  experiment.  Then,  ascending  from 
the  blacksmith's  stalwart  finger,  it  rose  in  a  gradually  en 
larging  curve  to  the  ceiling,  made  one  wide  sweep  around 
the  room  and  returned  with  an  undulating  movement  to 
the  point  whence  it  had  started. 

"  Well,  that  does  beat  all  nature  !"  cried  Robert  Dan- 
forth,  bestowing  the  heartiest  praise  that  he  could  find  ex 
pression  for;  and,  indeed,  had  he  paused  there,  a  man  of 
finer  words  and  nicer  perception  could  not  easily  have  said 
more.  "  That  goes  beyond  me,  I  confess.  But  what 
then?  There  is  more  real  use  in  one  downright  blow  of 
my  sledgehammer  than  in  the  whole  five  years'  labor  that 
our  friend  Owen  has  wasted  on  this  butterfly." 

Here  the  child  clapped  his  hands  and  made  a  great  bab 
ble  of  indistinct  utterance,  apparently  demanding  that  the 
butterfly  should  be  given  him  for  a  plaything. 

Owen  Warland,  meanwhile,  glanced  sidelong  at  Annie 
to  discover  whether  she  sympathized  in  her  husband's  esti 
mate  of  the  comparative  value  of  the  Beautiful  and  the 


THE  ARTIST  OF  THE  J3EA  UTIFUL.  379 

Practical.  There  was  amid  all  her  kindness  toward  him 
self,  amid  all  the  wonder  and  admiration  with  which  she 
contemplated  the  marvelous  work  of  his  hands  and  incar 
nation  of  his  idea,  a  secret  scorn — too  secret,  perhaps,  for 
her  own  consciousness  and  perceptible  only  to  such  intui 
tive  discernment  as  that  of  the  artist.  But  Owen,  in  the 
latter  stages  of  his  pursuit,  had  risen  out  of  the  region  in 
which  such  a  discovery  might  have  been  torture.  He  knew 
that  the  world  and  Annie  as  the  representative  of  the 
world,  whatever  praise  might  be  bestowed,  could  never  say 
the  fitting  word  nor  feel  the  fitting  sentiment  which 
should  be  the  perfect  recompense  of  an  artist  who,  symbol 
izing  a  lofty  moral  by  a  material  trifle — converting  what 
was  earthly  to  spiritual  gold — had  won  the  Beautiful  into 
his  handiwork.  Not  at  this  latest  moment  was  he  to  learn 
that  the  reward  of  all  high  performance  must  be  sought 
within  itself,  or  sought  in  vain.  There,  was,  however,  a 
view  of  the  matter  which  Annie  and  her  husband  and  even 
Peter  Hovenden,  might  fully  have  understood  and  which 
would  have  satisfied  them  that  the  toil  of  years  had  here 
been  worthily  bestowed.  Owen  AVarland  might  have  told 
them  that  this  butterfly,  this  play-thing,  this  bridal-gift 
of  a  poor  watchmaker  to  a  blacksmith's  wife,  was,  in 
truth,  a  gem  of  art  that  a  monarch  would  have  purchased 
with  honors  and  abundant  wealth  and  have  treasured  it 
among  the  jewels  of  his  kingdom  as  the  most  unique  and 
wondrous  of  them  all.  But  the  artist  smiled  and  kept  the 
secret  to  himself. 

"  Father,"  said  Annie,  thinking  that  a  word  of  praise 
from  the  old  watchmaker  might  gratify  his  former  appren 
tice,  "do  come  and  admire  this  pretty  butterfly." 

<e  Let  us  see,"  said  Peter  Hovenden,  raising  from  his 
chair  with  a  sneer  upon  his  face  that  always  made  people 
doubt,  as  he  himself  did,  in  everything  but  a  material  ex 
istence.  ' '  Here  is  my  finger  for  it  to  alight  upon.  I 
shall  understand  it  better  when  once  I  have  touched  it." 

But,  to  the  increased  astonishment  of  Annie,  when  the 
tip  of  her  father's  finger  was  pressed  against  that  of  her 
husband,  on  which  the  butterfly  still  rested,  the  insect 
drooped  its  wings  and  seemed  on  the  point  of  falling  to 
the  floor.  Even  the  bright  spots  of  gold  upon  its  wings 
and  body  unless  her  eyes  deceived  her,  grew  dim  and  the 
glowing  purple  took  a  dusky  hue  and  the  starry  luster 


380  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

that  gleamed  around  the  blacksmith's  hand  became  faint 
and  vanished. 

"  It  is  dying!     It  is  dying!"  cried  Annie,  in  alarm. 

"  It  has  been  delicately  wrought/' said  the  artist,  calmly. 
"  As  I  told  you,  it  has  imbibed  a  spiritual  essence — call  it 
magnetism,  or  what  you  will.  In  an  atmosphere  of  doubt 
and  mockery  its  exquisite  susceptibility  suffers  torture,  as 
does  the  soul  of  him  who  instilled  his  own  life  into  it.  It 
has  already  lost  its  beauty;  in  a  few  moments  more  its 
mechanism  would  be  irreparably  injured." 

"  Take  away  your  hand,  father,"  entreated  Annie,  turn 
ing  pale.  "  Here  is  my  child;  let  it  rest  on  his  innocent 
hand.  There,  perhaps,  its  life  will  revive  and  its  colors 
grow  brighter  than  ever." 

Her  father,  with  an  acrid  smile,  withdrew  his  finger. 
The  butterfly  then  appeared  to  recover  the  power  of  vol 
untary  motion,  while  its  hues  assumed  much  of  their  orig 
inal  luster,  and  the  gleam  of  starlight  which  was  its  most 
ethereal  attribute  again  formed  a  halo  round  about  it.  At 
first,  when  transferred  from  Eobert  Danforth's  hand  to  the 
small  finger  of  the  child,  this  radiance  grew  so  power 
ful  that  it  positively  threw  the  little  fellow's  shadow  back 
against  the  wall.  He,  meanwhile,  extended  his  plump 
hand  as  he  had  seen  his  father  and  mother  do,  and  watched 
the  waving  of  the  insect's  wings  with  infantine  delight. 
Nevertheless,  there  was  a  certain  odd  expression  of  sagacity 
that  made  Owen  Warland  feel  as  if  here  were  old  Peter 
Hovenden  partially,  and  but  partially,  redeemed  from  his 
hard  scepticism  into  childish  faith. 

"  How  wise  the  little  monkey  looks,"  whispered  Robert 
Danforth  to  his  wife. 

"  I  never  saw  such  a  look  on  a  child's  face,"  answered 
Annie,  admiring  her  own  infant,  and  with  good  reason,  far 
more  than  the  artistic  butterfly.  "  The  darling  knows 
more  of  the  mystery  than  we  do." 

As  if  the  butterfly,  like  the  artist,  were  conscious  of 
something  not  entirely  congenial  in  the  child's  nature,  it 
alternately  sparkled  and  grew  dim.  At  length  it  arose 
from  the  small  hand  of  the  infant  with  an  airy  motion  that 
seemed  to  bear  it  upward  without  an  effort,  as  if  the  ethe 
real  instincts  with  which  its  master's  spirit  had  endowed 
it  impelled  this  fair  vision  involuntarily  to  a  higher  sphere. 
Had  there  been  no  obstruction,  it  might  have  soared  into 


THE  ARTIST  OF  THE  BEA  UTIFUL.  381 

the  sky  and  grown  immortal,,  but  its  luster  gleamed  upon 
the  ceiling;  the  exquisite  texture  of  its  wings  brushed 
against  that  earthly  medium,  and  a  sparkle  or  two,  as  if 
star-dust,  floated  downward  and  lay  glimmering  on  the 
carpet.  Then  the  butterfly  came  fluttering  down,  and,  in 
stead  of  returning  to  the  infant,  was  apparently  attracted 
toward  the  artist's  hand. 

"Not  so!  not  so!"  murmured  Owen  Warland,  as  if  his 
handiwork  could  have  understood  him.  "Thou  hast  gone 
forth  out  of  thy  master's  heart.  There  is  no  return  for 
thee." 

With  a  wavering  movement,  and  emitting  a  tremulous 
radiance,  the  butterfly  struggled,  as  it  were,  toward  the  in 
fant,  and  was  about  to  alight  upon  his  finger.  But  while 
it  still  hovered  in  the  air  the  little  child  of  strength,  with 
his  gr.indsire's  sharp  and  shrewd  expression  in  his  face, 
made  a  snatch  at  the  marvelous  insect  and  compressed  it  in 
his  hand.  Annie  screamed;  old  Peter  Hovoden  burst  into 
a  cold  and  scornful  laugh.  The  blacksmith  by  main  force 
unclosed  the  infant's  hand,  and  found  within  the  palm  a 
small  heap  of  glittering  fragments  whence  the  mystery  of 
beauty  had  fled  forever.  And,  as  for  Owen  Warland,  he 
looked  placidly  at  what  seemed  the  ruin  of  his  life's  labor, 
and  which  yet  was  no  ruin.  lie  had  caught  a  far  other 
butterfly  than  this  .  AVhen  the  artist  rose  high  enough  to 
achieve  the  Beautiful,  the  symbol  by  which  he  made  it 
perceptible  to  mortal  senses  became  of  little  value  in  his 
eyes  while  his  spirit  possessed  itself  in  the  enjoyment  of 
the  reality. 


382  MOSSES  FROM  ON  OLD  MANSE. 


A  VIRTUOSO'S  COLLECTION. 


THE  other  day,  having  a  leisure  hour  at  my  disposal,  I 
stepped  into  a  new  museum  to  which  my  notice  was  casu 
ally  drawn  by  a  small  and  unobtrusive  sign:  "To  be  seen 
here  a  Virtuoso's  Collection."  Such  was  the  simple  yet 
not  altogether  unpromising  announcement  that  turned 
my  steps  aside  for  a  little  while  from  the  sunny  sidewalk 
of  our  principal  thoroughfare.  Mounting  a  somber  stair 
case,  I  pushed  open  a  door  at  its  summit,  and  found  myself 
in  the  presence  of  a  person  who  mentioned  the  moderate 
sum  that  would  entitle  me  to  admittance. 

"Three  shillings,  Massachusetts  tenor,"  said  he.  "  No, 
I  mean  half  a  dollar,  as  you  reckon  in  these  days." 

While  searching  my  pocket  for  the  coin  I  glanced  at 
the  door-keeper,  the  marked  character  and  individuality  of 
whose  aspect  encouraged  me  to  expect  something  not  quite 
in  the  ordinary  way.  He  wore  an  old-fashioned  great 
coat,  much  faded,  within  which  his  meager  person  was  so 
completely  enveloped  that  the  rest  of  his  attire  was  un- 
distinguishable.  But  his  visage  was  remarkably  wind- 
flushed,  sunburned  and  weather-worn,  and  had  a  most 
unquiet,  nervous  and  apprehensive  expression.  It  seemed 
as  if  this  man  had  some  all-important  object  in  view,  some 
point  of  deepest  interest  to  be  decided,  some  momentous 
question  to  ask  might  he  but  hope  for  a  reply.  As  it  was 
evident,  however,  that  I  could  have  nothing  to  do  with  his 
private  affairs,  I  passed  through  an  open  doorway  which 
admitted  me  into  the  extensive  hall  of  the  museum. 

Directly  in  front  of  the  portal  was  the  bronze  statue  of 
a  youth  with  winged  feet.  He  was  represented  in  the  act 
of  flitting  away  from  earth,  yet  wore  such  a  look  of  earnest 
invitation  that  it  impressed  me  like  a  summons  to  enter 
the  hull. 


A   VIRTUOSO'S  COLLECTION.  383 

"  It  is  the  original  statue  of  Opportunity,  by  the  ancient 
sculptor  Lysippus,"  said  a  gentleman  who  now  approached 
me.  "  I  place  it  at  the  entrance  of  my  museum  because  it 
is  not  at  all  times  that  one  can  gain  admittance  to  such  a 
collection." 

The  speaker  was  a  middle-aged  person  of  whom  it  was 
not  easy  to  determine  whether  he  had  spent  his  life  as  a 
scholar  or  as  a  man  of  action;  in  truth,  all  outward  and 
obvious  peculiarities  had  been  worn  away  by  an  extensive 
and  promiscuous  intercourse  with  the  world.  There  was 
no  mark  about  him  of  profession,  individual  habits,  or 
scarcely  of  country,  although  his  dark  complexion  and 
high  features  made  me  conjecture  that  he  was  a  native  of 
some  southern  clime  of  Europe.  At  all  events,  he  was 
evidently  the  Virtuoso  in  person. 

"With  your  permission/' said  he,  "as  we  have  no  de 
scriptive  catalogue,  1  will  accompany  you  through  the 
museum  and  point  out  whatever  may  he  most  worthy  of 
attention.  In  the  first  place,  here  is  a  choice  collection  of 
stuffed  animals." 

Nearest  the  door  stood  the  outward  semblance  of  a  wolf 
— exquisitely  prepared,  it  is  true,  and  showing  a  very  wolf 
ish  fierceness  in  the  large  glass  eyes  which  were  inserted 
into  its  wild  and  crafty  head.  Still,  it  was  merely  the 
skin  of  a  wolf,  with  nothing  to  distinguish  it  from  other 
individuals  of  that  unlovely  breed. 

"  How  does  this  animal  deserve  a  place  in  your  collec 
tion?"  inquired  I. 

"It  is  the  wolf  that  devoured  Little  Red  Riding  Hood," 
answered  the  Virtuoso;  "and  by  his  side — with  a  milder 
and  more  matronly  look,  as  you  perceive — stands  the  she- 
wolf  that  suckled  Romulus  and  Remus.'' 

"Ah,  indeed!"  exclaimed  I.  "And  what  lovely  lamb 
is  this  with  the  snow-white  fleece  which  seems  to  be  of  as 
delicate  a  texture  as  innocence  itself?" 

"  Methinks  you  have  but  carelessly  read  Spenser,"  re 
plied  my  guide,  "or  you  would  at  once  recognize  the 
'milk-white  lamb7  which  Una  led.  But  I  set  no  great 
value  upon  the  lamb.  The  next  specimen  is  better  worth 
our  notice." 

"  What!"  cried  I;  "  this  strange  animal  with  the  black 
head  of  an  ox  upon  the  body  of  a  white  horse?  Were  it 
possible  to  suppose  it,  I  should  say  that  this  was  Alexan 
der's  steed  Bucephalus." 


384  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"  The  same,"  said  the  Virtuoso.  "And  can  you  like 
wise  give  a  name  to  the  famous  charger  that  stands  beside 
him?" 

Next  to  the  renowned  Bucephalus  stood  the  mere 
skeleton  of  a  horse  with  the  white  bones  peeping  through 
his  ill-conditioned  hide.  But  if  my  heart  had  not  warmed 
toward  that  pitiful  anatomy,  I  might  as  well  have  quitted 
the  museum  at  once.  Its  rarities  had  not  been  collected 
with  pain  and  toil  from  the  four-quarters  of  the  earth  and 
from  the  depths  of  the  sea  and  from  the  palaces  and 
sepulchers  of  ages  for  those  who  could  mistake  this  illus 
trious  steed. 

"It  is  Kosinante!"  exclaimed  I,  with  enthusiasm. 

And  so  it  proved.  My  admiration  for  the  noble  and 
gallant  horse  caused  me  to  glance  with  less  interest  at  the 
other  animals,  although  many  of  them  might  have  de 
served  the  notice  of  Cuvier  himself.  There  was  the  donkey 
which  Peter  Bell  cudgelled  so  soundly,  and  a  brother  of 
the  same  species  who  had  suffered  a  similar  infliction  from 
the  ancient  prophet  Balaam.  Some  doubts  were  enter 
tained,  however,  as  to  the  authenticity  of  the  latter  beast. 
My  guide  pointed  out  the  venerable  Argus — that  faithful 
dog  of  Ulysses — and  also  another  dog  (for  so  the  skin  be 
spoke  it),  which,  though  perfectly  preserved,  seemed  once 
to  have  had  three  heads.  It  was  Cerberus.  I  was  con 
siderably  amused  at  detecting  in  an  obscure  corner  the  fox 
that  became  so  famous  by  the  loss  of  his  tail.  There  were 
several  stuffed  cats  which  as  dear  as  a  lover  of  that  com 
fortable  beast  attracted  my  affectionate  regards.  One  was 
Dr.  Johnson's  cat  Hodge,  and  in  the  same  TOW  stood  the 
favorite  cats  of  Mohammed,  Gray  and  Walter  Scott,  to 
gether  with  Puss  in  Boots  and  a  cat  of  very  noble  aspect 
who  had  once  been  a  deity  of  ancient  Egypt.  Byron's 
tame  bear  came  next.  I  must  not  forget  to  mention  the 
the  Erymanthean  boar,  the  skin  of  St.  George's  dragon 
and  that  of  the  serpent  Python,  and  another  skin,  with 
beautifully  variegated  hues,  supposed  to  have  been  the  gar 
ment  of  the  "spirited  sly  snake"  which  tempted  Eve. 
Against  the  walls  were  suspended  the  horns  of  a  stag  that 
Shakespeare  shot,  and  on  the  floor  lay  the  ponderous  shell 
of  the  tortoise  which  fell  upon  the  head  of  ^Eschylus.  In 
one  row,  as  natural  as  life,  stood  the  sacred  bull  Apis,  the 
"cow  with  the  crumpled  horn,"  and  a  very  wild-looking 


A  VIRTUOSO'S  COLLECTION.  385 

young  heifer,  which  I  guessed  to  be  the  cow  that  jumped 
over  the  moon.  She  was  probably  killed  by  the  rapidity 
of  her  descent.  As  I  turned  away,  my  eyes  fell  upon  an 
indescribable  monster  which  proved  to  be  a  griffin. 

"I  look  in  vain,"  observed  I,  "for  the  skin  of  an  ani 
mal  which  might  well  deserve  the  closest  study  of  a  nat 
uralist — the  winged  horse  Pegasus." 

"  He  is  not  yet  dead,"  replied  the  Virtuoso,  "but  he  is 
so  hard  ridden  by  many  young  gentleman  of  the  day  that 
I  hope  soon  to  add  his  skin  and  skeleton  to  my  collection." 

AVe  now  passed  to  the  next  alcove  of  the  hall,  in  which 
was  a  multitude  of  stuffed  birds.  They  were  very  prettily 
arranged — some  upon  the  branches  of  trees,  others  brood 
ing  upon  nests,  and  others  suspended  by  wires  so  artfully 
that  they  seemed  in  the  very  act  of  flight.  Among  them 
was  a  white  dove  with  a  withered  branch  of  olive-leaves  in 
her  mouth. 

"  Can  this  be  the  very  dove,"  inquired  I,  "  that  brought 
the  message  of  peace  and  hope  to  the  tempest-beaten  pas 
sengers  of  the  ark?" 

"  Even  so,"  said  my  companion. 

"And  this  raven,  I  suppose,"  continued  I,  "is  the 
same  that  fed  Elijah  in  the  wilderness?" 

"The  raven?  Xo,"  said  the  Virtuoso;  "  it  is  a  bird  of 
modern  date.  He  belonged  to  one  Barnaby  lludge,  and 
many  people  fancied  that  the  devil  himself  was  disguised 
under  his  sable  plumage.  But  poor  (i  rip  has  drawn  his 
last  cock  and  has  been  forced  to  'say  die'  at  last.  This 
other  raven,  hardly  less  curious,  is  that  in  which  the  soul 
of  King  George  I  revisited  his  lady-love  the  Duchess  of 
Kendall." 

My  guide  next  pointed  out  Minerva's  owl  and  the  vul 
ture  that  preyed  upon  the  liver  of  Prometheus.  There 
was  likewise  the  sacred  ibis  of  Egypt  and  one  of  the 
Stymphalides,  which  Hercules  shot  in  his  sixth  labor. 
Shelley's  skylark,  Bryant's  water-fowl  and  a  pigeon  from 
the  belfry  of  the  Old  South  Church,  preserved  by  N.  P. 
Willis,  were  placed  on  the  same  perch.  I  could  not  but 
shudder  on  beholding  Coleridge's  albatross  transfixed  with 
the  Ancient  Mariner's  crossbow  shaft.  Beside  this  bird  of 
awful  poesy  stood  a  gray  goose  of  very  ordinary  aspect. 

"  Stuffed  goose  is  no  such  rarity,"  observed  I.  "Why 
do  you  preserve  such  a  specimen  in  your  museum?" 


386  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

"  It  is  one  of  the  flock  whose  cackling  saved  the  Bo- 
maii  capitol,"  answered  the  Virtuoso.  "  Many  geese 
have  cackled  and  hissed  both  before  and  since,  but 
none  like  those,  have  clamored  themselves  into  immor 
tality." 

There  seemed  to  be  little  else  that  demanded  notice  in 
this  department  of  the  museum,  unless  we  except  Robin 
son  Crusoe's  parrot,  a  live  phoenix,  a  footless  bird  of  par 
adise  and  a  splendid  peacock  supposed  to  be  the  same 
that  once  contained  the  soul  of  Pythagoras.  I,  therefore, 
passed  to  the  next  alcove,  the  shelves  of  which  were  cov 
ered  with  a  miscellaneous  collection  of  curiosities  such  as 
are  usually  found  in  similar  establishments.  One  of  the 
first  tilings  that  took  my  eye  was  a  strange-looking  cap 
woven  of  some  substance  that  appeared  to  be  neither 
woolen,  cotton  nor  linen. 

"  Is  this  a  magician's  cap?"  I  asked. 

"  No,"  replied  the  Virtuoso;  "  it  is  merely  Dr.  Frank 
lin's  cap  of  asbestos.  But  here  is  one  which  perhaps  may 
suit  you  better.  It  is  the  wish  ing-cap  of  Fortunatus. 
Will  you  try  it  on?" 

"By  no  means,"  answered  I,  putting  it  aside  with  my 
hand.  "  The  day  of  wild  wishes  is  past  with  me;  I  de 
sire  nothing  that  may  not  come  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
Providence." 

"Then,  probably,"  returned  the  Virtuoso,,  "you  will 
not  be  tempted  to  rub  this  lamp?" 

While  speaking  he  took  from  the  shelf  an  antique  brass 
lamp  curiously  wrought  with  embossed  figures,  but  so  cov 
ered  with  verdigris  that  the  sculpture  was  almost  eaten 
away. 

"  It  is  a  thousand  years,"  said  he,  "  since  the  genius  of 
this  lamp  constructed  Aladdin's  palace  in  a  single  night. 
But  he  still  retains  his  power,  and  the  man  who  rubs 
Aladdin's  lamp  has  but  to  desire  either  a  palace  or  a  cot 
tage." 

'•'  I  might  desire  a  cottage,"  replied  I,  "  but  I  would 
have  it  founded  on  sure  and  stable  truth,  not  on  dreams 
and  fantasies.  I  have  learned  to  look  for  the  real  and  the 
true." 

My  guide  next  showed  me  Prospero's  magic  wand, 
broken  into  three  fragments  by  the  hand  of  its  mighty 
master.  On  the  same  shelf  lay  the  gold  ring  of  ancient 


A'  VIRTUOSO 'S  COLLECTION.  387 

Gyges,  which  enabled  the  wearer  to  walk  invisible.  On 
the  other  side  of  the  alcove  was  a  tall  looking-glass  in  a 
frame  of  ebony,  but  veiled  with  a  curtain  of  purple  silk, 
through  the  rents  of  which  the  gleam  of  the  mirror  was 
perceptible. 

"  This  is  Cornelius  Agrippa's  magic  glass,"  observed  the 
Virtuoso.  "Draw  aside  the  curtain  and  picture  any  hu 
man  form  within  your  mind  and  it  will  be  reflected  in  the 
mirror." 

"  It  is  enough  if  I  can  picture  it  within  my  mind,"  an 
swered  I.  "  Why  should  I  wish  it  to  be  repeated  in  the 
mirror?  But,  indeed,  these  works  of  magic  have  grown 
wearisome  to  me.  There  are  so  many  greater  wonders  in 
the  world  to  those  who  keep  their  eyes  open  and  their 
sight  undimmed  by  custom  that  all  the  delusions  of  the 
old  sorcerers  seem  flat  and  stale.  Unless  you  can  show 
me  something  really  curious  I  care  not  to  look  farther  into 
your  museum." 

"Ah,  well,  then,"  said  the  Virtuoso,  composedly,  "per 
haps  you  may  deem  some  of  my  antiquarian  rarities  de 
serving  of  a  glance." 

He  pointed  out  the  Iron  Mask,  now  corroded  with  rust, 
and  my  heart  grew  sick  at  the  sight  of  this  dreadful  relic 
which  had  shut  out  a  human  being  from  sympathy  with 
his  race.  There  was  nothing  half  so  terrible  in  the  ax 
that  beheaded  King  Charles,  nor  in  the  dagger  that  slew 
Henry  of  Navarre,  nor  in  the  arrow  that  pierced  the  heart 
of  William  Kufus,  all  of  which  were  shown  to  me,  Many 
of  the  articles  derived  their  interest — such  as  it  was — from 
having  been  formerly  in  the  possession  of  royalty.  For 
instance,  here  was  Charlemagne's  sheepskin"  cloak,  the 
flowing  wig  of  Louis  Quatorze,  the  spinning-wheel  of  Sar- 
danapalus  ami  King  Stephen's  famous  breeches  which  cost 
him  but  a  crown.  The  heart  of  the  Bloody  Mary,  with 
the  word  "  Calais"  worn  into  its  diseased  substance,  was 
preserved  in  a  bottle  of  spirits,  and  near  it  lay  the  golden 
case  in  which  the  queen  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  treasured 
up  that  hero's  heart.  Among  these  relics  and  heirlooms  of 
kings  I  must  not  forget  the  long,  hairy  ears  of  Midas  and 
a  piece  of  bread  which  had  been  changed  to  gold  by  the 
touch  of  that  unlucky  monarch.  And,  as  Grecian  Helen 
was  a  queen,  it  may  here  be  mentioned  that  I  was  per 
mitted  to  take  into  my  hand  a  lock  of  her  golden  hair  and 


388  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

the  bowl  which  a  sculptor  modeled  from  the  curve  of  her 
perfect  breast.  Here,  likewise,  was  the  robe  that  smoth 
ered  Agamemnon,,  Nero's  fiddle,  the  Czar  Peter's  brandy- 
bottle,  the  crown  of  Semiramis  and  Canute's  scepter  which 
he  extended  over  the  sea.  That  my  own  land  may  not 
deem  itself  neglected  let  me  add  that  I  was  favored  with 
a  sight  of  the  skull  of  King  Philip,  the  famous  Indian 
chief  whose  head  the  puritans  smote  oil  and  exhibited 
upon  a  pole. 

"  Show  me  something  else,"  said  I  to  the  Virtuoso. 
"  Kings  are  in  such  an  artificial  position  that  people  in  the 
ordinary  walks  of  life  cannot  feel  an  interest  in  their 
relics.  If  you  could  show  me  the  straw  hat  of  sweet  little 
Nell  I  would  far  rather  see  it  than  a  king's  golden  crown." 

"  There  it  is,"  said  my  guide,  pointing  carelessly  with 
his  staff  to  the  straw  hat  in  question.  "  But,  indeed,  you 
are  hard  to  please.  Here  are  the  seven-league  boots;  will 
you  try  them  on?" 

"  Our  modern  railroads  have  superseded  their  use," 
answered  I,  "and,  as  to  these  cowhide  boots,  I  could  show 
you  quite  as  curious  a  pair  at  the  transcendental  commu 
nity  in  Roxbury." 

We  next  examined  a  collection  of  swords  and  other 
weapons  belonging  to  different  epochs  but  thrown  together 
without  much  attempt  at  arrangement.  Here  was  Arthur's 
sword  Excalibar  and  that  of  the  Cid  Campeador,  and  the 
sword  of  Brutus  rusted  with  Caesar's  blood  and  his  own,  and 
the  sword  of  Joan  of  Arc,  and  that  of  Horatius,  and  that 
with  which  Virginius  slew  his  daughter  and  the  one  which 
Dionyshi?  suspended  over  the  head  of  Damocles.  Here, 
also,  was  Arria's  sword,  which  she  plunged  into  her  own 
breast  in  order  to  taste  of  death  before  her  husband.  The 
crooked  blade  of  Saladin's  scimiter  next  attracted  my  no 
tice.  I  knew  not  by  what  chance,  but  it  so  happened  that 
the  sword  of  one  of  our  own  militia  generals  was  suspended 
between  Don  Quixote's  lance  and  the  brown  blade  of  Hu- 
dibras.  My  heart  throbbed  high  at  the  sight  of  the  helmet 
of  Miltiades  and  the  spear  that  was  broken  in  the  breast  of 
Epaminondas.  I  recognized  the  shield  of  Achilles  by  its 
resemblance  to  the  admirable  cast  in  the  possession  of  Prof. 
Felton.  Nothing  in  this  apartment  interested  me  more 
than  Maj.  Pitcairn's  pistol,  the  discharge  of  which  at 
Lexington  began  the  war  of  the  Revolution  and  was  rever- 


A  VIRTUOSO'S  COLLECTION.  389 

berated  in  thunder  around  the  land  for  seven  long  years. 
The  bow  of  Ulysses,  though  unstrung  for  ages,  was  placed 
against  the  wall,  together  with  a  sheaf  of  Robin  Hood's 
arrows  and  the  rifle  of  Daniel  Boone. 

"  Enough  of  weapons/7 said  I,  at  length,  "although  I 
would  gladly  have  seen  the  sacred  shield  which  fell  from 
heaven  in  the  time  of  Numa.  And  surely  you  should 
obtain  the  sword  which  Washington  unsheathed  at  Cam 
bridge.  But  the  collection  does  you  much  credit.  Let  us 
pass  on  " 

In  the  next  alcove  we  saw  the  golden  thigh  of  Pythagoras, 
which  had  so  divine  a  meaning,  and,  by  one  of  the  queer 
analogies  to  which  the  Virtuoso  seemed  to  be  addicted, 
this  ancient  emblem  lay  on  the  same  shelf  with  Peter 
Stuyvesant's  wooden  leg,  that  was  fabled  to  be  of  silver. 
Here  was  a  remnant  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  and  a  sprig  of 
yellow  leaves  that  resembled  the  foliage  of  a  frost-bitten 
elm,  but  was  duly  authenticated  as  a  portion  of  the  golden 
branch  by  which  ^Eneas  gained  admittance  to  the  realm  of 
Pluto.  Atalanta's  golden  apple  and  one  of  the  apples  of 
discord  were  wrapped  in  the  napkin  of  gold  which  Ramp- 
sinitus  brought  from  Hades,  and  the  whole  were  deposited 
in  the  golden  vase  of  Bias,  with  its  inscription:  "  To  the 
Wisest/' 

"And  how  did  you  obtain  this  vase?"  said  I  to  the 
Virtuoso. 

"  It  was  given  me  long  ago,"  replied  he,  with  a  scornful 
expression  in  his  eye,  "  because  I  had  learned  to  despise  all 
things." 

It  had  not  escaped  me  that  though  the  Virtuoso  was  evi 
dently  a  man  of  high  cultivation,  yet  he  seemed  to  lack 
sympathy  with  the  spiritual,  the  sublime  and  the  tender. 
Apart  from  the  whim  that  had  led  him  to  devote  so  much 
time,  pains  and  expense  to  the  collection  of  this  museum, 
he  impressed  me  as  one  of  the  hardest  and  coldest  men  of 
the  world  whom  I  had  ever  met. 

"To  despise  all  things,"  repeated  I — "this,  at  best,  is 
the  wisdom  of  the  understanding.  It  is  the  creed  of  a  man 
whose  soul — whose  better  and  diviner  part — has  never  been 
awakened  or  has  died  out  of  him." 

"  I  did  not  think  that  you  were  still  so  young,"  said  the 
Virtuoso.  "  Should  you  live  to  my  years,  you  will  ac 
knowledge  that  the  vase  of  Bias  was  not  ill  bestowed," 


390  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

Without  further  discussion  of  the  point,  he  directed  my 
attention  to  other  curiosities.  I  examined  Cinderella's  lit 
tle  glass  slipper  and  compared  it  with  one  of  Diana's  san 
dals,  and  with  Fanny  Elssler's  shoe,  which  bore  testimony 
to  the  muscular  character  of  her  illustrious  foot.  On  the 
same  shelf  were  Thomas  the  Rhymer's  green  velvet  shoes 
and  the  brazen  shoe  of  Empedocles,  which  was  thrown  out 
of  Mount  ^Etna.  Anacreon's  drinking-cup  was  placed  in 
apt  juxtaposition  with  one  of  Tom  Moore's  wine-glasses 
and  Circe's  magic  bowl.  These  were  symbols  of  luxury 
and  riot,  but  near  them  stood  the  cup  whence  Socrates 
drank  his  hemlock  and  that  which  Sir  Philip  Sydney  put 
from  his  death-parched  lips  to  bestow  the  draught  upon  a 
dying  soldier.  Next  appeared  a  cluster  of  tobacco-pipes 
consisting  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's — the  earliest  on  record — 
Dr.  Parr's,  Charles  Lamb's  and  the  first  calumet  of  peace 
which  was  ever  smoked  between  a  European  and  an  Indian. 
Among  other  musical  instruments  I  noticed  the  lyre  of  Or 
pheus  and  those  of  Homer  and  Sappho,  Dr.  Franklin's 
famous  whistle,  the  trumpet  of  Anthony  Van  Corlear  and 
the  flute  which  Goldsmith  played  upon  in  his  rambles 
through  the  French  provinces.  The  staff  of  Peter  the  Her 
mit  stood  in  a  corner  with  that  of  good  old  Bishop  Jewel 
and  one  of  ivory  which  had  belonged  to  Papirius,  the  Ro 
man  senator.  The  ponderous  club  of  Hercules  was  close  at 
hand.  The  Virtuoso  showed  me  the  chisel  of  Phidias, 
Claude's  palette  and  the  brush  of  Appelles,  observing  that 
he  intended  to  bestow  the  former  either  on  Greenough, 
Crawford  or  Powers,  and  the  two  latter  upon  Washington 
Allston.  There  was  a  small  vase  of  oracular  gas  from  Del- 
phos,  which  I  trust  will  be  submitted  to  the  scientific  an 
alysis  of  Prof.  Silliman.  I  was  deeply  moved  on  be 
holding  a  vial  of  the  tears  into  which  Niobe  was  dissolved, 
nor  less  so  on  learning  that  a  shapeless  fragment  of  salt  was 
a  relic  of  that  victim  of  despondency  and  sinful  regrets — 
Lot's  wife.  My  companion  appeared  to  set  great  value 
upon  some  Egyptian  darkness  in  a  blacking-jug.  Several 
of  the  shelves  were  covered  by  a  collection  of  coins;  among 
which,  however,  I  remember  none  but  the  Splendid  Shilling, 
celebrated  by  Phillips,  and  a  dollar's  worth  of  the  iron 
money  of  Lycurgus,  weighing  about  fifty  pounds. 

"  It  is  Christian's  burden  of  sin,"  said  the  Virtuoso. 

"  Oh,  pray  let  us  open  it!  "  cried  I.  "  For  many  a  year 
I  have  longed  to  know  its  contents." 


A  VIRTUOSO'S  COLLECTION.  391 

"  Look  into  your  own  consciousness  and  memory,"  re 
plied  the  Virtuoso.  "  You  will  there  find  a  list  of  whatever 
it  contains." 

As  this  was  an  undeniable  truth,  I  threw  a  melancholy 
look  at  the  burden  and  passed  on.  A  collection  of  old  gar 
ments  hanging  on  pegs  was  worthy  of  some  attention,  espec 
ially  the  shirt  of  Nessus,  Caesar's  mantle,  Joseph's  coat  of 
many  colors.,  the  vicar  of  Bray's  cassock,  Goldsmith's  peach- 
bloom  suit,  a  pair  of  President  Jefferson's  scarlet  breeches, 
John  Randolph's  red  baize  hunting-shirt,  the  drab,  small 
clothes  of  the  Stout  Gentleman  and  the  rags  of  the  ''man 
all  tattered  and  torn."  George  Fox's  hat  impressed  me 
with  deep  reverence  as  a  relic  of  perhaps  the  truest  apostle 
that  has  appeared  on  earth  for  these  eighteen  hundred 
years.  My  eye  was  next  attracted  by  an  old  pair  of  shears 
which  I  should  have  taken  for  a  memorial  of  some  famous 
tailor,  only  that  the  Virtuoso  pledged  his  veracity  that 
they  were  the  identical  scissors  of  Atropos.  He  also  showed 
me  a  broken  hour-glass  which  had  been  thrown  aside  by 
Father  Time,  together  with  the  old  gentleman's  gray  fore 
lock,  tastefully  braided  into  a  brooch.  In  the  hour-glass 
was  the  handful  of  sand  the  grains  of  which  had  numbered 
the  years  of  the  Cuma^an  Sibyl.  I  think  it  was  in  this 
alcove  that  I  saw  the  inkstand  which  Luther  threw  at  the 
devil  and  the  ring  which  Fssex,  while  under  sentence 
of  death,  sent  to  Queen  Elizabeth.  And  here  was  the 
blood-inc  rusted  pen  of  steel  with  which  Faust  signed  away 
his  salvation. 

The  Virtuoso  now  opened  the  door  of  a  closet  and  showed 
me  a  lamp  burning,  while  three  others  stood  unlighted  by 
its  side.  One  of  the  three  was  the  lam})  of  Diogenes,  an 
other  that  of  Guy  Faux,  and  the  third  that  which  Hero  set 
forth  to  the  midnight  breeze  in  the  high  tower  of  Abydos. 

•'See!"  said  the  Virtuoso,  blowing  with  all  his  force  at 
the  lighted  lamp. 

The  flame  quivered  and  shrank  away  from  his  breath, 
but  clung  to  the  wick,  and  resumed  its  brilliancy  as  soon 
as  the  blast  was  exhausted. 

"  It  is  an  undying  lamp  from  the  tomb  of  Charlemange," 
observed  my  guide.  '*  That  flame  was  kindled  a  thousand 
years  ago." 

''  How  ridiculous,  to  kindle  an  unnatural  light  in  tombs!" 
exclaimed  I.  "  We  should  seek  to  behold  the  dead  in  the 


392  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

light  of  heaven.  But  what  is  the  meaning  of  this  chafing- 
dish  of  glowing  coals?  " 

"That,"  answered  the  Virtuoso.,  "is  the  original  fire 
which  Prometheus  stole  from  heaven.  Look  steadfastly 
into  it,  and  you  will  discern  another  curiosity." 

I  gazed  into  that  fire  which  symbolically  was  the  origin 
of  all  that  was  bright  and  glorious  in  the  soul  of  man,  and 
in  the  midst  of  it,  behold  !  a  little  reptile  sporting  with 
evident  enjoyment  of  the  fervid  heat.  It  was  a  sala 
mander. 

"  What  a  sacrilege  !  "  cried  I,  with  inexpressible  disgust. 
"  Can  you  find  no  better  use  for  this  ethereal  fire  than  to 
cherish  a  loathsome  reptile  in  it  ?  Yet  there  are  men  who 
abuse  the  sacred  fire  of  their  own  souls  to  as  foul  and 
guilty  a  purpose." 

The  Virtuoso  made  no  answer  except  by  a  dry  laugh  and 
an  assurance  that  the  salamander  was  the  very  same  which 
Benvenuto  Cellini  had  seen  in  his  father's  household  fire. 
He  then  proceeded  to  show  me  other  rarities,  for  this  closet 
appeared  to  be  the  receptacle  of  what  he  considered  most 
valuable  in  his  collection. 

"  There,"  said  he,  "  is  the  Great  Carbuncle  of  the  White 
Mountains." 

I  gazed  with  no  little  interest  at  this  mighty  gem,  which 
it  had  been  one  of  the  wild  projects  of  my  youth  to  dis 
cover.  Possibly  it  might  have  looked  brighter  to  me  in 
those  days  than  now  ;  at  all  events,  it  had  not  such  brill 
iancy  as  to  detain  me  long  from  the  other  articles  of  the 
museum.  The  Virtuoso  pointed  to  me  a  crystalline  stone 
which  hung  by  a  gold  chain  against  the  wall. 

"  That  is  the  Philosopher's  Stone,"  said  he. 

"  And  have  you  the  Elixir  Vitae,  which  generally  accom 
panies  it  ?  "  inquired  I. 

"Even  so  ;  this  urn  is  filled  with  it,"  he  replied.  "A 
draught  would  refresh  you.  Here  is  Hebe's  cup  ;  will  you 
quaff  a  health  from  it  ?" 

My  heart  thrilled  within  me  at  the  idea  of  such  a  reviv 
ing  draught,  for  methought  I  had  great  need  of  it  after 
traveling  so  far  on  the  dusty  road  of  life.  But  I  know 
not  whether  it  were  a  peculiar  glance  in  the  Virtuoso's  eye 
or  the  circumstance  that  this  most  precious  liquid  was  con 
tained  in  an  antique  sepulchral  urn  that  made  me  pause. 
Then  came  many  a  thought  with  which  in  the  calmer  and 


A  VIRTUOSO  'S  COLLECTION.  393 

better  hours  of  life  I  had  strengthened  myself  to  feel  that 
Death  is  the  very  friend  whom  in  his  due  season  even  the 
happiest  mortal  should  be  willing  to  embrace. 

"  No ;  I  desire  not  an  earthly  immortality,"  said  I 
"  Were  man  to  live  longer  on  the  earth,  the  spiritual  would 
die  out  of  him.  The  spark  of  ethereal  fire  would  be  choked 
by  the  material,  the  sensual.  There  is  a  celestial  some 
thing  within  us  that  requires  after  a  certain  time  the  atmos 
phere  of  heaven  to  preserve  it  from  decay  and  ruin.  I  will 
have  none  of  this  liquid.  You  do  well  to  keep  it  in  a 
sepulchral  urn,  for  it  would  produce  death  while  bestowing 
the  shadow  of  life." 

"•  All  this  is  unintelligible  to  me,"  responded  my  guide, 
with  indifference.  "  Life — earthly  life — is  the  only  good. 
But  you  refuse  the  draught  ?  Well,  it  is  not  likely  to  be 
offered  twrice  within  one  man's  experience.  Probably  you 
have  griefs  which  you  seek  to  forget  in  death;  I  can  enable 
vou  to  forget  them  in  life.  Will  you  take  a  draught  of 
Lethe?" 

As  he  spoke  the  Virtuoso  took  from  the  shelf  a  crystal 
vase  containing  a  sable  liquor  which  caught  no  reflected 
image  from  the  objects  around. 

"  Not  for  the  world  ! "  exclaimed  I,  shrinking  back.  "I 
can  spare  none  of  my  recollections — not  even  those  of  error 
or  sorrow.  They  are  all  alike  the  food  of  my  spirit.  As 
well  never  to  have  lived  as  to  lose  them  now." 

Without  further  parley  we  passed  to  the  next  alcove,  the 
shelves  of  which  were  burdened  with  ancient  volumes,  and 
with  those  rolls  of  papyrus  in  which  was  treasured  up  the 
eldest  wisdom  of  the  earth.  Perhaps  the  most  valuable 
work  in  the  collection  to  a  bibliomaniac  was  the  book  of 
Hermes.  For  my  part,  however,  I  would  have  given  a 
higher  price  for  those  six  of  the  Sibyl's  books  which  Tar- 
quin  refused  to  purchase,  and  which  the  Virtuoso  informed 
me  he  had  himself  found  in  the  cave  of  Trophonius.  Doubt 
less  these  old  volumes  contain  prophecies  of  the  fate  of 
Rome,  both  as  respects  the  decline  and  fall  of  her  temporal 
empire  and  the  rise  of  her  spiritual  one.  Not  without  value, 
likewise,  was  the  work  of  Anaxagoras  on  "  Nature,"  hitherto 
supposed  to  be  irrecoverably  lost,  and  the  missing  treatises 
of  Longinus,  by  which  modern  criticism  might  profit,  and 
those  books  of  Livy  for  which  the  classic  student  has  so  long 
sorrowed  without  hope.  Among  these  precious  tones  I  ob- 


39-4  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

served  the  original  manuscript  of  the  "  Koran, "and  also  that 
of  the  Mormon  bible,  in  Joe  Smith's  authentic  autograph. 
Alexander's  copy  of  the  "  Iliad  "  was  also  there,  inclosed  in 
the  jeweled  casket  of  Darius,  still  fragrant  of  the  perfumes 
which  the  Persian  kept  in  it. 

Opening  an  iron-clasped  volume  bound  in  black  leather, 
I  discovered  it  to  be  Cornelius  Agrippa's  hook  of  magic; 
and  it  was  rendered  still  more  interesting  by  the  fact  that 
many  flowers,  ancient  and  modern,  were  pressed  between 
its  leaves.  Here  was  a  rose  from  Eve's  bridal -bower, 
and  all  those  red  and  white  roses  which  were  plucked  in 
the  garden  of  the  Temple  by  the  partisans  of  York  and 
Lancaster.  Here  was  Halleck's  wild  rose  of  Alloway. 
Cowper  had  contributed  a  sensitive  plant,  and  Wordsworth 
an  eglantine,  and  Burns  a  mountain-daisy,  and  Kirke  White 
a  star  of  Bethlehem,  and  Longfellow  a  spring  of  fennel  with 
its  yellow  flowers.  James  Russell  Lowell  had  given  a 
pressed  flower,  but  fragrant  still,  which  had  been  shadowed 
in  the  Rhine.  There  was  also  a  sprig  from  Sou  they's  holly 
tree.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  specimens  was  a  fringed 
gentian  which  had  been  plucked  and  preserved  for  immor 
tality  by  Bryant.  From  Jones  Very — a  poet  whose  voice 
is  scarcely  heard  among  us  by  reason  of  its  depth — there  was 
a  wind  flower  and  a  columbine. 

As  I  closed  Cornelius  Agrippa's  magic  volume  an  old 
mildewed  letter  fell  upon  the  floor;  it  proved  to  be  an  au 
tograph  from  the  Flying  Dutchman  to  his  wife.  I  could 
linger  no  longer  among  books,  for  the  afternoon  was  waning 
and  there  was  yet  much  to  see.  The  bare  mention  of  a  few 
more  curiosities  must  suffice.  The  immense  skull  of  Poly 
phemus  was  recognizable  by  the  cavernous  hollow  in  the 
centre  of  the  forehead  where  once  had  blazed  the  giant's 
single  eye.  The  tub  of  Diogenes,  Medea's  caldron  and 
Psyche's  vase  of  beauty  were  placed  one  within  another. 
Pandora's  box,  without  the  lid,  stood  next,  containing 
nothing  but  the  girdle  of  Venus,  which  had  be3ii  carelessly 
flung  into  it.  A  bundle  of  birch  rods  which  had  been  used 
by  Shenstone's  schoolmistress  were  tied  up  with  the  countess 
of  Salisbury's  garter.  1  knew  not  which  to  value  most,  a 
roc's  egg  as  big  as  an  ordinary  hogshead,  or  the  shell  of  the 
egg  which  Columbus  set  up  on  its  end.  Perhaps  the  most 
delicate  article  in  the  whole  museum  was  Queen  Mab's 
chariot,  which,  to  guard  it  from  the  touch  of  meddlesome 
fingers,  was  placed  under  a  glass  tumbler. 


A  VIRTUOSO'S  COLLECTION.  395 

Several  of  the  shelves  were  occupied  by  specimens  of 
entomology.  Feeling  but  little  interest  in  the  science,  I 
noticed  only  Anacreon's  grasshopper,  and  a  humble-bee 
which  had  been  presented  to  the  Virtuoso  by  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson. 

In  the  part  of  the  hall  which  we  had  now  reached  I  ob 
served  a  curtain  that  descended  from  the  ceiling  to  the  floor 
in  voluminous  folds  of  a  depth,  richness  and  magnificence 
which  I  had  never  seen  equalled.  It  was  not  to  be  doubted 
that  this  splendid  though  dark  and  solemn  veil  concealed  a 
portion  of  the  museum  even  richer  in  wonders  than  that 
through  which  I  had  already  passed.  But  on  my  attempt 
ing  to  grasp  the  edge  of  the  curtain  and  draw  it  aside  it 
proved  to  be  an  illusive  picture. 

"You  need  not  blush/' remarked  the  Virtuoso,  "  for 
that  same  curtain  deceived  Zeuxis.  It  is  the  celebrated 
painting  of  Pan-basins." 

In  a  range  with  the  curtain  there  were  a  number  of  other 
choice  pictures  by  artists  of  ancient  days.  Here  was  the 
famous  ''Cluster  of  Grapes/'  by  Zeuxis,  so  admirably  de 
picted  that  it  seemed  as  if  the  ripe  juice  were  bursting 
forth.  As  to  the  picture  of  the  "  Old  Woman/'  by  the 
same  illustrious  painter,  and  which  was  so  ludicrous  that 
he  himself  died  with  laughing  at  it,  1  cannot  say  that  it 
particularly  moved  my  risibility.  Ancient  humor  seems  to 
have  little  power  over  modern  muscles.  Here,  also,  was 
the  horse  painted  by  Apelles  which  living  horses  neighed 
at,  his  first  portrait  of  Alexander  the  Great  and  his  last 
unfinished  picture  of  Venus  asleep.  Each  of  these  works 
of  art,  together  with  others  by  Parrhasius,  Timanthes, 
Polygnotus,  Apollodorus,  Pausias  and  Pamphilus,  required 
more  time  and  study  than  I  could  bestow  for  the  adequate 
perception  of  their  merits.  I  shall  therefore  leave  them 
undescribed  and  uncriticised,  nor  attempt  to  settle  the 
question  of  superiority  between  ancient  and  modern 
art. 

For  the  same  reason  I  shall  pass  lightly  over  the  speci 
mens  of  antique  sculpture  which  this  indefatigable  and 
fortunate  Virtuoso  had  dug  out  of  the  dust  of  fallen  em 
pires.  Here  was  ^Etion's  cedar  statue  of  ^Esculapius, 
much  decayed,  and  Alcorn's  iron  statue  of  Hercules, 
lamentably  rusted.  Here  was  the  statue  of  Victory,  six 
feet  high,  which  the  Jupiter  Olympus  of  Phidias  had  held 


396  MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSE. 

in  his  hand.  Here  was  a  forefinger  of  the  Colossus  of 
Rhodes,  seven  feet  in  length.  Here  was  the  Venus  Urania 
of  Phidias,  and  other  images  of  male  and  female  beauty 
or  grandeur  wrought  by  sculptors  who  appear  never  to 
have  debased  their  souls  by  the  sight  of  any  meaner  forms 
than  those  of  gods  or  godlike  mortals.  But  the  deep 
simplicity  of  these  great  works  was  not  to  be  compre 
hended  by  a  mind  excited  and  disturbed  as  mine  was  by 
the  various  objects  that  had  recently  been  presented  to  it. 
I  therefore  turned  away  with  merely  a  passing  glance,  re 
solving  on  some  future  occasion  to  brood  over  each  in 
dividual  statue  and  picture  until  my  inmost  spirit  should 
feel  their  excellence.  In  this  department,  again,  I  noticed 
the  tendency  to  whimsical  combinations  and  ludicrous 
analogies  which  seemed  to  influence  many  of  the  arrange 
ments  of  the  museum.  The  wooden  statue  so  well  known 
as  the  Palladium  of  Troy  was  placed  in  close  apposi 
tion  with  the  wooden  head  of  Gen.  Jackson,  which  was 
stolen  a  few  years  since  from  the  bows  of  the  Constitu 
tion. 

We  had  now  completed  the  circuit  of  the  spacious  hall, 
and  found  ourselves  again  near  the  door.  Feeling  some 
what  wearied  with  the  survey  of  so  many  novelties  and  an 
tiquities,  I  sat  down  upon  Cowpers  sofa,  while  the  Virtuoso 
threw  himself  carelessly  into  Rabelais'  easy-chair.  Casting 
my  eyes  upon  the  opposite  wall,  I  was  surprised  to  perceive 
the  shadow  of  a  man  flickering  unsteadily  across  the  wain 
scot  and  looking  as  if  it  were  stirred  by  some  breath  of  air 
that  found  its  way  through  the  door  or  windows.  No  sub 
stantial  figure  was  visible  from  which  this  shadow  might  be 
thrown,  nor,  had  there  been  such,  was  there  any  sunshine 
that  would  have  caused  it  to  darken  upon  the  wall. 

"It  is  Peter  SchlemihPs  shadow,"  observed  the  Vir 
tuoso,  "  and  one  of  the  most  valuable  articles  in  my  collec 
tion." 

"Methinks  a  shadow  would  have  made  a  fitting  door 
keeper  to  such  a  museum,"  said  I,  "although,  indeed, 
yonder  figure  has  something  strange  and  fantastic  about 
him  which  suits  well  enough  with  many  of  the  impressions 
which  I  have  received  here.  Pray,  who  is  he?" 

While  speaking  I  gazed  more  scrutinizingly  than  before 
at  the  antiquated  presence  of  the  person  who  had  admitted 


A  VIRTUOSO'S  COLLECTION.  397 

me,  and  who  still  sat  on  his  bench  with  the  same  restless 
aspect  and  dim,  confused,  questioning  anxiety  that  I  had 
noticed  on  my  first  entrance.  At  this  moment  lie  looked 
eagerly  towards  us,  and,  half  starting  from  his  seat,  ad 
dressed  me. 

"I  beseech  you,  kind  sir,"  said  he,  in  a  cracked,  melan 
choly  tone,  "have  pity  on  the  most  unfortunate  man 
in  the  world.  For  Heaven's  sake  answer  me  a  single  ques 
tion:  is  this  the  town  of  Boston?" 

"  You  have  recognized  him  now,"  said  the  Virtuoso. 
"  It  is  Peter  Rugg,  the  missing  man.  I  chanced  to  meet 
him  the  other  day  still  in  search  of  Boston  and  conducted 
him  hither;  and,  as  he  could  not  succeed  in  finding  his 
friends,  I  have  taken  him  into  my  service  as  door-keeper. 
He  is  somewhat  too  apt  to  ramble,  but  otherwise  a  man  of 
trust  and  integrity." 

"And  might  I  venture  to  ask,"  continued  I,  "to  whom 
am  I  indebted  for  this  afternoon's  gratification ?" 

The  Virtuoso  before  replying  laid  his  hand  upon  an  an 
tique  dart  or  javelin  the  rusty  steel  head  of  which  seemed 
to  have  been  blunted,  as  if  it  had  encountered  the  resist 
ance  of  a  tempered  shield  or  'breastplate. 

"  My  name  has  not  been  without  its  distinction  in  the 
world  for  a  longer  period  than  that  of  any  other  man  alive," 
answered  he,  "yet  many  doubt  of  my  existence;  perhaps 
you  will  do  so  to-morrow.  This  dart  which  I  hold  in  my 
hand  was  once  grim  Death's  own  weapon.  It  served  him 
well  for  the  space  of  4,000  years,  but  it  fell  blunted,  as  you 
see,  when  he  directed  it  against  my  breast.'" 

These  words  were  spoken  with  the  calm  and  cold  cour 
tesy  of  manner  that  had  characterized  this  singular  person 
age  throughout  our  interview.  I  fancied,  it  is  true,  that 
there  was  a  bitterness  indefinably  mingled  with  his  tone,  as 
of  one  cut  off  from  natural  sympathies  and  blasted  with  a 
doom  that  had  been  inflicted  on  no  other  human  being  and 
by  the  results  of  which  he  had  ceased  to  be  human.  Yet, 
withal,  it  seemed  one  of  the  most  terrible  consequences  of 
that  doom  that  the  victim  no  longer  regarded  it  as  a  ca 
lamity,  but  had  finally  accepted  it  as  the  greatest  good  that 
could  have  befallen  him. 

"You  are  the  Wandering  Jew!"  exclaimed  I. 

The  Virtuoso  bowed  without  emotion  of  any  kind,  for 
by  centuries  of  custom  he  had  almost  lost  the  sense  of 


MOSSES  FROM  AN  OLD  MANSti. 

strangeness  in  his  fate,  and  was  but  imperfectly  conscious 
of  the  astonishment  and  awe  with  which  it  affected  such 
as  are  capable  of  death. 

"  Your  doom  is  indeed  a  fearful  one,"  said  I,  with  irre 
pressible  feeling  and  a  frankness  that  afterward  startled  me; 
"  yet,  perhaps,  the  ethereal  spirit  is  not  entirely  extinct 
under  all  this  corrupted  or  frozen  mass  of  earthly  life. 
Perhaps  the  immortal  spark  may  yet  be  rekindled  by  a 
breath  of  heaven.  Perhaps  you  may  yet  be  permitted  to 
die  before  it  is  too  late  to  live  eternally.  You  have  my 
prayers  for  such  a  consummation.  Farewell!" 

"  Your  prayers  will  be  in  vain,"  replied  he,  with  a  smile 
of  cold  triumph.  "  My  destiny  is  linked  with  the  realities 
of  earth.  You  are  welcome  to  your  visions  and  shadows  of 
a  future  state,  but  give  me  what  I  can  see  and  touch  and 
understand  and  I  ask  no  more." 

"  It  is  indeed  too  late,"  thought  I.  "  The  soul  is  dead 
within  him." 

Struggling  between  pity  and  horror,  I  extended  my  hand, 
to  which  the  Virtuoso  gave  his  own,  still  with  the  habitual 
courtesy  of  a  man  of  the  world,  but  without  a  single  heart 
throb  of  human  brotherhood.  The  touch  seemed  like  ice, 
yet  I  know  not  whether  morally  or  physically.  As  I  de 
parted  he  bade  me  observe  that  the  inner  door  of  the  hall 
was  constructed  with  the  ivory  leaves  of  the  gateway 
through  which  JSneas  and  the  Sibyl  had  been  dismissed 
from  Hades.  \_ 


THE   END. 


;  6»E«»- 


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